skill-writer

Skill Writer

This Skill helps you create well-structured Agent Skills for Claude Code that follow best practices and validation requirements.

When to use this Skill

Use this Skill when:

• Creating a new Agent Skill
• Writing or updating SKILL.md files
• Designing skill structure and frontmatter
• Troubleshooting skill discovery issues
• Converting existing prompts or workflows into Skills

Instructions

Step 1: Determine Skill scope

First, understand what the Skill should do:

1. Ask clarifying questions:

   • What specific capability should this Skill provide?
   • When should Claude use this Skill?
   • What tools or resources does it need?
   • Is this for personal use or team sharing?

2. Keep it focused: One Skill = one capability

   • Good: "PDF form filling", "Excel data analysis"
   • Too broad: "Document processing", "Data tools"

Step 2: Choose Skill location

Determine where to create the Skill:

Personal Skills (~/.claude/skills/):

• Individual workflows and preferences
• Experimental Skills
• Personal productivity tools

Project Skills (.claude/skills/):

• Team workflows and conventions
• Project-specific expertise
• Shared utilities (committed to git)

Step 3: Create Skill structure

Create the directory and files:

# Personal
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/skill-name

# Project
mkdir -p .claude/skills/skill-name

For multi-file Skills:

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md (required)
├── reference.md (optional)
├── examples.md (optional)
├── scripts/
│   └── helper.py (optional)
└── templates/
    └── template.txt (optional)

Step 4: Write SKILL.md frontmatter

Create YAML frontmatter with required fields:

---
name: skill-name
description: Brief description of what this does and when to use it
---

Field requirements:

• name:
  • Lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens only
  • Max 64 characters
  • Must match directory name
  • Good: pdf-processor, git-commit-helper
  • Bad: PDF_Processor, Git Commits!