| name | create-skill |
| description | Create a new personal skill for this user, scaffolded into their own ~/.pal/skills/ and linked into every installed agent. Use when the user asks to create a skill, add a capability, build a custom command, or "make a skill that…". |
| argument-hint | <skill name> <skill description> |
Create a personal skill
This scaffolds a personal skill into the user's own ~/.pal/skills/<name>/ and links it into every installed agent so it is immediately discoverable.
The quality rules and the exact skill anatomy live in one place — read them before writing anything:
cat ~/.pal/skills/create-skill/authoring-guide.md
Workflow when invoked with <name> <description>
- Check whether a flagship authoring model is configured for the current agent:
pal cli skill author-model
- If it prints a model → delegate the authoring to the
skill-author subagent. That subagent is preconfigured to run on that flagship model; hand it the skill name, description, and any trigger/tooling hints, and let it write the SKILL.md, scaffold tools, run pal cli skill link, and run the doctor. Relay its result.
- If it prints nothing → author the skill inline yourself:
- Read
authoring-guide.md (above) and follow its anatomy.
mkdir -p ~/.pal/skills/<name> and write ~/.pal/skills/<name>/SKILL.md.- If the skill needs runtime tooling, scaffold a
tools/ subdir and write the scripts there.
- Link it into every installed agent:
pal cli skill link <name>.
- Run
pal cli skill doctor <name> and fix every ✗; weigh each ⚠.
- Hand-check the items the doctor can't judge (see the guide's final section).
Either path: validate the name first (lowercase-kebab, no spaces, not colliding with an existing skill in ~/.pal/skills/ or the active skill list), and confirm the trigger with the user if the description is ambiguous about when the skill should fire.
Output format
After scaffolding, return:
- The path of the created
SKILL.md (under ~/.pal/skills/<name>/).
- The agents it was linked into (from the
pal cli skill link output).
- A 2-3 sentence summary of the trigger and workflow.
- How to invoke it (its
/<name> slash command or trigger phrase).
