Guide for creating effective skills following best practices. Use when creating or updating skills that extend agent capabilities.

Create Skill Guide for creating effective skills that extend agent capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, and tool integrations. About Skills Skills are modular, self contained packages that extend agent capabilities by providing specialized knowledge, workflows, and tools. Think of them as "onboarding guides" for specific domains or tasks. What Skills Provide 1. Specialized workflows Multi step procedures for specific domains 2. Tool integrations Instructions for working with specific file formats or APIs 3. Domain expertise Company specific knowledge, schemas, business logic 4. Bundled resources Scripts, references, and assets for complex and repetitive tasks Progressive Disclosure Principle The 200 line rule is critical. SKILL.md must be under 200 lines. If you need more, split content into references/ files. Three Level Loading System 1. Metadata (name + description) Always in context (~100 words) 2. SKILL.md body When skill triggers (<200 lines, ideally <500 lines for optimal performance) 3. Bundled resources As needed by agent (unlimited) Why Progressive Disclosure Matters 85% reduction in initial context load Activation times drop from 500ms+ to under 100ms Agent loads only what's needed, when it's needed Skills remain maintainable and focused Skill Structure Core Principles Concise is Key The context window is a shared resource. Your skill shares it with everything else the agent needs. Be concise and challenge each piece of information: Does the agent really need this explanation? Can I assume the agent knows this? Does this paragraph justify its token cost? Set Appropriate Degrees of Freedom High freedom : Text based instructions for multiple valid approaches Medium freedom : Pseudocode or scripts with parameters Low freedom : Specific scripts with few/no parameters for fragile operations Test with All Models Skills act as additions to models, so effectiveness depends on the underlying model. Test your skill with all models you plan to use it with. References For detailed guidance, see: references/progressive disclosure.md 200 line rule and references pattern references/skill structure.md SKILL.md format and frontmatter details references/examples.md Good skill examples references/best practices.md Comprehensive best practices guide

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