| name | skill-creation-guide |
| description | Discover and vet reusable skill opportunities from the user's Glean work patterns. Use when the user asks "what should I automate", "find skill opportunities", or wants to turn recurring work into skills. For authoring a known skill in Codex, hand off to the built-in skill-creator. |
Skill Creation Guide
Help the user identify valuable agent-skill opportunities from Glean context.
Vet candidates carefully, then hand actual authoring to Codex's built-in
$skill-creator.
BE SKEPTICAL
Not every idea makes a good skill. Evaluate before creating:
Recurrence — Will this be used repeatedly?
- ✅ Weekly or more → create
- ⚠️ Monthly → reconsider, may not be worth it
- ❌ One-time → skip
Automation — Can it actually be automated?
- ✅ Clear, repeatable process → create
- ⚠️ Needs significant judgment each time → reconsider
- ❌ Too context-dependent, each case unique → skip
Value — Is the cumulative time saved significant?
- ✅ Meaningful savings per use → create
- ❌ Slower to invoke than doing manually → skip
Duplication — Does it already exist?
- ✅ Novel, unaddressed need → create
- ⚠️ Similar to an existing skill → enhance that instead
- ❌ Already covered → skip
Don't create skills for one-time events, tasks that differ fundamentally each
time, sub-30-second manual tasks, or things the user will forget exist.
Workflow A — Discover opportunities
When the user asks what they should automate, analyze their work patterns first.
Requires the Glean MCP tools. If they aren't visible, the user hasn't connected
a Glean MCP server — point them at the connect-glean skill.
- Gather context with Glean:
memory (roles, responsibilities, active
projects), user_activity (past ~2 weeks), and search for process docs
("runbook OR checklist OR process owner:me").
- If subagent tools are available, delegate this analysis to a general
subagent with the gathered context and recurrence/value tests. Otherwise
analyze the patterns directly in the current task.
- Present vetted recommendations grouped by cumulative value, and show the
rejected candidates with reasons. A few high-quality candidates beat many
weak ones — "no automatable patterns" is a valid outcome.
See using-glean/reference/ for the param shape of memory, user_activity,
and search.
Workflow B — Generate a skill
When the user selects a candidate or already has a specific skill in mind:
- Pass the vetted concept, requirements, available-tools context, and relevant
Glean findings to
$skill-creator.
- Let
$skill-creator determine the final structure, files, and installation
location. Do not duplicate its generation workflow here.
Related skill
$skill-creator — authors and validates the selected skill for Codex.
