Creation Process
Understanding the skill
Before creating a skill, gather concrete usage examples. Ask:
- What functionality should the skill support?
- Can you give examples of how this would be used?
- What would a user say that should trigger this skill?
Skip this when usage patterns are already clear. Conclude when you have a clear sense of the functionality the skill should support.
Planning reusable contents
Analyze each example by:
- Considering how to execute on the example from scratch
- Identifying what scripts, references, and assets would help when doing this repeatedly
Example analyses
pdf-editor for "Help me rotate this PDF":
- Rotating a PDF requires re-writing the same code each time
- → A
scripts/rotate_pdf.pyscript would be helpful
frontend-webapp-builder for "Build me a todo app":
- Writing a frontend webapp requires the same boilerplate each time
- → An
assets/hello-world/template with boilerplate project files would be helpful
big-query for "How many users logged in today?":
- Querying BigQuery requires re-discovering table schemas each time
- → A
references/schema.mddocumenting table schemas would be helpful
Creating the skill
- Create the skill directory with
SKILL.md - Implement reusable resources (
scripts/,references/,assets/) - Write SKILL.md frontmatter and body
- Validate with
skills-ref validate ./my-skill - Iterate based on real usage