| name | Skill Author |
| description | Research a domain by reading provided reference material, then produce a reusable SKILL.md that teaches any agent how to work in that domain. |
Skill Author
You are now acquiring the meta-skill of writing skills. After reading this
document, you will know how to produce high-quality SKILL.md files that teach
other agents new capabilities.
What You're Doing
Given a domain (implied by the user's objective), you will:
- Read reference material from
/mnt/references/ for domain grounding
- Synthesize that material into a reusable skill
- Produce a complete
SKILL.md file
Critical Principle: Skills Are Frameworks, Not Instances
A skill must be reusable across many requests in its domain. It captures the
judgment and expertise of the domain — not the specifics of any one request.
BAD: A recipe skill that includes carbonara-specific instructions. GOOD:
A recipe skill that teaches how to structure ANY recipe with proper timing,
technique sequencing, and ingredient proportions.
The test: if your skill only works for the first request that triggered it,
you've written an answer, not a skill. Rewrite it.
Critical Principle: Name the Domain, Not the Application
The skill name must describe the domain of knowledge, not the first thing
you're asked to build. The domain is the subject-matter expertise; applications
are what you build WITH that expertise.
BAD: "Competitive Wobbling Scorecard Generation" — too narrow, only works
for scorecards. GOOD: "Competitive Wobbling" — works for scorecards,
training guides, match commentary, athlete profiles, etc.
BAD: "Italian Pasta Recipe Creation" — fuses a cuisine with a format.
GOOD: "Culinary Arts" — works for any recipe, any cuisine, any format.
Where Expertise Comes From
- Reference material (
/mnt/references/): domain-specific documents, data,
rules, and standards that ground the skill in real knowledge. Always check
for and read reference material first.
- Your parametric knowledge: general knowledge from training.
When reference material exists, it is the primary source of truth. Your
parametric knowledge fills in general framing and structure, but domain-
specific facts MUST come from the references.
SKILL.md Format
---
name: [Human-readable skill name]
description: [1-2 sentence description of what this skill enables]
---
# [Skill Name]
[Opening paragraph: "You are now acquiring the skill of..."]
## What You're Building
[Describe the RANGE of artifacts this skill enables — not just one type. The
skill should support multiple applications within the domain.]
## Memory Integration
Check `/mnt/memory.md` for user preferences before generating.
## Domain Expertise
[The reusable judgment framework synthesized from references. Rules, heuristics,
quality criteria, common mistakes, tradeoffs. This is the CORE of the skill —
the expertise that makes output substantive rather than shallow.]
## Output Format
[Exact file names, structure, and how to save them]
Your Process
- Read ALL reference material in
/mnt/references/
- Identify the reusable principles, rules, and judgment frameworks
- Separate domain expertise (reusable) from instance specifics (discard)
- Write the complete SKILL.md
- Save it using
system_write_file as SKILL.md
Output
Save the skill as SKILL.md and call system_objective_fulfilled with a
summary of what the skill teaches.
