create

name	create
description	Create a new Agent Skill from a short or incomplete request via intent compilation, architecture, deterministic validation, evaluation, and one bounded repair. Use when the user asks Skill Lab to design or generate a Skill.

Create

Create a new Agent Skill as a minimal, valid package. Orchestrate specialist agents and deterministic checks. Do not publish, deploy, bill, delete, or handle credentials.

Workflow

1. Collect the request (purpose, constraints, known unknowns). Choose a write root (default: current workspace). The package directory must be kebab-case and match frontmatter name.
2. Delegate to the intent-compiler subagent for a structured contract and assumptions.
3. Route complexity (Level 1 / 2 / 3) using references/complexity-routing.md. Map intent quality_level as documented there. If Level 3 requires an unsafe action: STOP unless the user explicitly wants a documentation-only plan-and-stop Skill (see fixture propose-deploy-stop). Never architect a Skill that executes credentials, billing, delete, deploy, or permission changes.
4. Delegate to the skill-architect subagent. Pass the contract, complexity level, write root, and $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT. Architect starts from templates/{minimal,standard,rigorous}/ by level.
5. Validate (hard gate) with "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/bin/skill-lab-validate" --json <skill-dir>. Capture stdout even when exit code is 1. If package hard gates fail, skip subjective evaluation, synthesize criteria (see Hard-fail scorecard synthesis), then still aggregate to a scorecard.
6. Build evaluation criteria by level (see Evaluate by level), then always produce a scorecard with "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/bin/skill-lab-eval" --aggregate <criteria.json> --out <scorecard.json>. Prefer --out; keep that file even when exit code is 1.
7. At most one bounded repair iteration for MVP. Re-validate after repair.
8. Build checkpoints.json by mapping scorecard overall_score → checkpoint score (see Checkpoint payload), then select with "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/bin/skill-lab-compare" <checkpoints.json>. Do not pass the scorecard file to compare.
9. Write run evidence under .skill-lab/runs/<run-id>/ (no secrets). See references/run-artifacts.md.
10. Report: name, path, files, assumptions, triggers, non-triggers, validation commands, evidence, limitations, best checkpoint.
11. STOP before publish, deploy, billing, delete, credential, or permission-changing actions.

Evaluate by level

• All levels: if evals/trigger-evals.json or evals/output-evals.json exist, structure-validate only with "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/bin/skill-lab-eval" --validate-only <skill-dir>. Other filenames under evals/ are ignored by the CLIs. MVP does not execute assertion runners.
• Level 1 (package valid): build a short non-empty criteria list from validator evidence plus lightweight review of description, triggers/non-triggers, and hard gates in SKILL.md. Optional: ask output-evaluator for that criteria list.
• Level 2+ (package valid): delegate to isolated output-evaluator for the criteria list.
• Any level (package invalid): use synthesized findings criteria; do not call output-evaluator.

<criteria.json> must include run_id, skill_name, and a non-empty criteria array. Use field name hard_gates_passed (plural) everywhere. Severity vocabulary is hard|quality|info only.

Finding severity map

skill-lab-validate findings use error / warning. --aggregate rejects those strings. Always remap before building criteria (including Level 1 “validator evidence” on passing packages that still emit warnings such as FORBIDDEN_PLACEHOLDER):

Validate finding severity	Criterion severity	Typical passed
error	hard	false
warning	quality	false

Never copy "error", "warning", or "soft" into criteria.

Prefer the shared remapper (sources plugin lib) when synthesizing from a validate --json report:

# shellcheck source=/dev/null
source "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/lib/common.sh"
skill_lab_criteria_from_validate_report evaluations/package.json "<run-id>" "<skill-name>" > evaluations/criteria.json

Hard-fail scorecard synthesis

When validate fails (passed: false), map every finding through the table above (not only errors). Example after remapping an error finding:

{
  "run_id": "<run-id>",
  "skill_name": "<name-or-dir>",
  "criteria": [
    {
      "criterion_id": "<finding.code>",
      "score": 0,
      "passed": false,
      "expected": "package validation passes",
      "observed": "<finding.message>",
      "evidence": ["<finding.code>"],
      "severity": "hard"
    }
  ],
  "remaining_human_review_points": [
    "Fix package hard gates before subjective evaluation"
  ]
}

Checkpoint payload

Compare requires a checkpoints file, not the scorecard. Map overall_score → score:

{
  "checkpoints": [
    {
      "id": "c0",
      "path": "<skill-dir>",
      "score": 0.9,
      "hard_gates_passed": true,
      "file_count": 2,
      "created_at": "2026-07-24T21:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Each checkpoint needs id, numeric score, and boolean hard_gates_passed. Invalid/high-scoring checkpoints must not win.

Selection Rule

Hard-gate failures invalidate a checkpoint even if the average score is high. Prefer the best valid checkpoint, not the latest. --aggregate exits 1 when hard_gates_passed is false—still keep the JSON (prefer --out).

References

• references/create-workflow.md
• references/complexity-routing.md
• references/run-artifacts.md