Skill Creator

Core Principles

• Concise is key: Context window is shared. Only add what Claude doesn't already know.
• Keep skills short: SKILL.md under 100 lines preferred, 500 lines max. Split to references/ if longer.
• Degrees of freedom: Match specificity to task fragility. Scripts for fragile operations, text for flexible ones.

Skill Structure

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md (required)
│   ├── YAML frontmatter: name, description (required)
│   └── Markdown body (required)
└── Bundled Resources (optional)
    ├── scripts/     - Executable code for deterministic/repeated tasks
    ├── references/  - Documentation loaded as needed
    └── assets/      - Files used in output (templates, images)

SKILL.md

• Frontmatter: name and description only. Description is the trigger mechanism—include when to use.
• Body: Instructions for using the skill and its bundled resources.

Resources

• scripts/: Reusable code. Test before including.
• references/: Domain knowledge, schemas, detailed guides. Load only when needed.
• assets/: Templates, images for output. Not loaded into context.

Do NOT include: README.md, CHANGELOG.md, or auxiliary documentation.

Creation Process

1. Understand - Gather concrete usage examples from user
2. Plan - Identify reusable scripts, references, assets
3. Initialize - Run scripts/init_skill.py <name> --path <dir>
4. Edit - Implement resources, write SKILL.md
5. Iterate - Improve based on real usage

Design Patterns

See references/ for detailed patterns:

• references/workflows.md - Multi-step processes, conditional logic
• references/output-patterns.md - Templates, quality standards

init_skill.py

scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --path <output-directory>

Creates skill directory with SKILL.md template and example resources.

Note: In this repo, create skills in modules/home/profile-dev/programs/claude-code/skills/.