skill-authoring
GitHub指导如何编写、修订和审查Agent技能，确保描述精准触发且指令可用。涵盖创建新技能、诊断触发问题、检查重叠及验证流程，提升技能加载准确率与实用性。
Trigger Scenarios
Install
npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill skill-authoring -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "skill-authoring",
"description": "Writes and revises agent skills so they trigger at the right moments and give usable instruction when they do. Use this when creating a new skill, editing an existing one, diagnosing a skill that fires too often or never fires, or reviewing a set of skills for overlap. Also use before adding to a skill library, to check the capability is not already covered."
}
Skill authoring
A skill is judged twice: on whether it loads at the right moment, and on whether it helps once loaded. Most fail the first test.
The description does the triggering
It is the only part read when deciding whether to load. Write it for that job:
- Lead with what the skill does, in one clause.
- Then when to reach for it — the situations, in the words someone would actually use, including the oblique ones ("why isn't this converting" as well as "CRO audit").
- Name the edge cases that should still trigger it, and where useful, what should not.
Vague descriptions produce two failures at once: the skill misses cases it should catch, and fires on cases it cannot help.
The body does the work
Write for someone competent who has not thought about this problem today. That means:
- Method over exhortation. "Be thorough" is noise. An ordered procedure is instruction.
- State the failure behind each rule. A rule with no failure attached gets optimized away by the next reader.
- Be specific enough to be wrong. Guidance too hedged to contradict is too vague to follow.
- Put long material in
references/and say when to read it. The body should fit in working memory.
Overlap is the silent killer
Two skills whose descriptions both match a request means neither reliably wins. Before adding one, check what already covers the ground. Prefer extending an existing skill, or consolidating the family into one skill with references, over adding a near-neighbor.
Mechanics
namemust be lowercase-hyphenated and equal the directory name, or the skill will not load.- One skill, one directory,
SKILL.mdat its root; supporting material inreferences/andscripts/.
Verify before shipping
Write three requests that should trigger it and two that should not, and check the description actually discriminates. If a near-miss request would pull it in, tighten the description.
Never
- Ship a skill whose description does not say when to use it. A skill that never triggers is dead weight.
- Write a skill that restates what the model already does well without prompting.
- Let two skills claim the same trigger. Move the boundary or merge them.
- Ship without running the skill against the case that motivated writing it.
Version History
- d58a7ee Current 2026-09-02 21:11
