| name | engraim-skillsmith |
| description | Author, review, and promote workspace-local skills so this project can grow its own capabilities. Use when a multi-step procedure recurs across sessions, when the user says "make this a skill" / "automate this", or when running /engraim:draft-skill, /engraim:promote-skill, or /engraim:skills. Drives the draft -> gate -> activate pipeline (draft_skill, review_skill, promote_skill, list_skills, retire_skill). Composes with Anthropic's skill-creator when it's available rather than duplicating it.
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Skillsmith: grow the workspace's own skills
EngrAIm lets a workspace mint its own skills. EngrAIm owns the promotion pipeline and
gate (provenance, validation, safety); it does NOT replace a dedicated skill-authoring
tool.
Compose with skill-creator (don't reinvent it)
If Anthropic's skill-creator skill is available (it ships pre-loaded in Claude Code and
is installable via /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills), prefer it for authoring
and evaluating the skill — it has a real draft → test → iterate eval harness. Then bring the
finished SKILL.md (+ scripts) into EngrAIm's pipeline with draft_skill so it gets
provenance, the gate, and a tracked promotion. If skill-creator isn't present, author with
the checklist below.
When to mint a skill
- The same multi-step recipe has come up across sessions (a deploy/verify/repair sequence,
a project-specific build incantation, a data-massage pipeline).
- The user explicitly asks to capture/automate a procedure.
- A curated session or retrospective surfaces a durable, repeatable workflow.
Don't mint a skill for one-offs or for knowledge — knowledge goes in the wiki (engraim-memory).
Authoring checklist
- name: kebab-case, matches the directory.
- description: third person, lead with the use case, include the phrases a user would
actually say (the description is the trigger, not documentation). A little "pushy" is good.
- body: focused; progressive disclosure — keep SKILL.md tight and point to
references/
or scripts/ for detail. Scripts run via bash and their code never enters context.
- No secrets (keys, tokens). No destructive shell. Scope it to THIS workspace.
The pipeline (the ladder)
- Draft →
draft_skill(name, description, body, scripts?) writes it to
.engraim/pending/skills/<name>/. It is inert there — Claude Code does not load it.
- Gate →
review_skill(name) runs structural checks (frontmatter, kebab name, no
duplicate) and a safety scan of bundled scripts. Fix structural failures in the draft;
never force past them.
- Activate →
promote_skill(name) copies it to the project .claude/skills/<name>/,
where Claude Code loads it (live — SessionStart pre-creates that dir). Safety warnings
block promotion unless the user explicitly approves force: true.
- Prescribe (manual, gated) → if a workspace skill proves broadly useful beyond this
project, propose it as a PR to the shipped plugin's
skills/ (copy it into the plugin
repo and open a PR). Never auto-modify the installed plugin.
Discipline
- The gate is the point — go draft → review → promote; don't hand-write into
.claude/skills/
and skip provenance.
- Retire with
retire_skill(name) when a skill stops earning its place (it leaves history).
- Prefer one sharp skill over several vague ones.
