/writing-great-skills

name: writing-great-skills
description: >-
  Reference for writing and editing agent skills well — the vocabulary and
  principles that make a skill predictable. Consult when authoring, reviewing,
  or pruning a SKILL.md.
disable-model-invocation: true
allowed-tools:
  - Read
  - Grep
  - Glob
  - Edit
  - Write

Writing Great Skills

A skill exists to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system. **Predictability** — the agent taking the same _process_ every run, not producing the same output — is the root virtue; every lever below serves it.

**Bold terms** are defined in [`GLOSSARY.md`]({baseDir}/references/GLOSSARY.md); look them up there for the full meaning.

When to Use

• Writing a new skill and deciding how to structure, word, and scope it
• Reviewing or editing an existing skill that fires unreliably, runs

inconsistently, or has grown bloated

• Diagnosing a skill failure mode: the agent rushes steps, ignores reference

material, or triggers the wrong skill

When NOT to Use

• General prompt engineering for one-off prompts — this reference is about

reusable skills, where predictability across runs is the goal

• Questions about skill/plugin packaging mechanics (directory layout,

manifest fields); consult the platform's plugin documentation instead

Invocation

Two choices, trading different costs:

• A **model-invoked** skill keeps a **description**, so the agent can fire it autonomously _and_ other skills can reach it (you can still type its name too). It contributes to **context load** — the description sits in the window every turn. Mechanics: omit `disable-model-invocation`, and write a model-facing description with rich trigger phrasing ("Use when the user wants…, mentions…").
• A **user-invoked** skill strips the description from the agent's reach: only you, typing its name, can invoke it — and no other skill can. Zero context load, but it spends **cognitive load**: _you_ are the index that must remember it exists. Mechanics: set `disable-model-invocation: true`; the `description` becomes human-facing — a one-line summary, trigger lists stripped.

Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own, or another skill must. If it only ever fires by hand, make it user-invoked and pay no context load.

When user-invoked skills multiply past what you can remember, that piled-up cognitive load is cured by a **router skill**: one user-invoked skill that names the others and when to reach for each.

Writing the description

A model-invoked **description** does two jobs — state what the skill is, and list the **branches** that should trigger it. Every word increases **context load**, so a description earns even harder pruning than the body:

• **Front-load the skill's leading word** — the description is where it does its invocation work.
• **One trigger per branch.** Synonyms that rename a single branch are **duplication** — "build features using TDD … asks for test-first development" is one branch written twice. Collapse them; keep only genuinely distinct branches.
• **Cut identity that's already in the body.** Keep the description to triggers, plus any "when another skill needs…" reach clause.

Information hierarchy

A skill is built from two content types — **steps** and **reference** — that mix freely: a skill can be all steps, all reference, or both. The core decision is which to use and where each sits on the **information hierarchy**, a ladder ranked by how immediately the agent needs the material:

1. **In-skill step** — an ordered action in `SKILL.md`, the primary tier: what the agent does, in order. Each step ends on a **completion criterion**, the condition that tells the agent the work is done. Make it _checkable_ (can the agent tell done from not-done?) and, where it matters, _exhaustive_ ("every modified model accounted for", not "produce a change list") — a vague criterion invites **premature completion**. 2. **In-skill reference** — a definition, rule, or fact in `SKILL.md`, consulted on demand. Often a legitimately flat peer-set (every rule of a review on one rung) — a fine arrangement, not a smell. _This skill is all reference._ 3. **External reference** — reference pushed out of `SKILL.md` into a separate file, reached by a **context pointer**, loaded only when the pointer fires. (Spans _disclosed_ reference — a sibling file like `GLOSSARY.md`, still part of the skill — through fully **external reference** that lives outside the skill system and any skill can point at.)

A demanding completion criterion drives thorough **legwork** — the digging the agent does within the work — whether the skill has steps or not, since "every rule applied" binds flat reference just as "every step done" binds a sequence.

Push too little down and the top bloats; push too much and you hide material the agent actually needs. That tension is the whole decision.

**Progressive disclosure** is the move down the ladder — out of `SKILL.md` into a linked file — so the top stays legible. Mechanics: a linked `.md` file in the skill folder, named for what it holds (this skill discloses its full definitions to `GLOSSARY.md`). Some skills are used in more than one way, and each distinct way is a **branch** — different runs taking different paths through the skill. Branching is the cleanest disclosure test: inline what every branch needs, and push behind a pointer what only some branches reach. A **context pointer**'s _wording_, not its target, decides when and how reliably the agent reaches the material.

Where the ladder decides _how far down_ a piece sits, **co-location** decides _what sits beside it_ once there: keep a concept's definition, rules, and caveats under one heading rather than scattered, so reading one part brings its neighbours with it.

When to split

**Granularity** is how finely you divide skills, and each cut spends one of the two loads, so split only when the cut earns it. Two cuts:

• **By invocation** — split off a