engraim-skillsmith

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.

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)

1. Draft → draft_skill(name, description, body, scripts?) writes it to .engraim/pending/skills/<name>/. It is inert there — Claude Code does not load it.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.