Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add EzraApple/skills-init --skill writing-skillsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/EzraApple/skills-initWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ezraapple/skills-init/writing-skills)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ezraapple/skills-init/writing-skills"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ezraapple/skills-init/writing-skills/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ezraapple/skills-init/writing-skills"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ezraapple/skills-init/writing-skills.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00035 | $0.01972 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00017 | $0.00986 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00007 | $0.00394 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00197 |
Grade A, and why
writing-skills scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 11d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 245 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Writing Skills
A skill is reusable operational guidance that helps a future agent recognize a situation and apply a proven approach. Treat skill writing like product work for agents: define the job, make discovery reliable, keep the path through the docs obvious, and verify that the skill changes behavior.
Start With Intent
Before writing or editing a skill, answer these from the current task and the target project. Ask only for gaps that cannot be inferred.
- What task should this help agents do?
- When should it trigger? Include user phrases, symptoms, tools, paths, and near-miss cases.
- What should the agent produce or decide after reading it?
- What 2-3 concrete tasks should it handle end to end?
- Who is the audience: repository developer agents, user-facing runtime agents, or a packaged skill bundle for many projects?
- What existing skill, always-on guidance, script, lint, or test already covers part of this?
Those concrete tasks become the should-trigger prompts used during validation.
Choose The Right Home
Do placement before writing content.
| Home | Use for |
|---|---|
.agents/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md |
Project-local source of truth for reusable skills. |
Tool-specific links, such as .claude/skills |
Generated symlinks or copies that point back to .agents/skills. |
AGENTS.md or equivalent always-on guidance |
Broad rules that should apply even when no skill is invoked. |
scripts/, lint, or tests |
Mechanical behavior that can be enforced automatically. |
| Runtime workspace skill directory | User-facing skills that must be visible to a sandbox or runtime agent. |
Search before adding a top-level skill:
rg --files .agents/skills | rg '/SKILL\.md$' | sort
rg -n "keyword|tool|old-skill-name" .agents AGENTS.md .
Prefer adding a nested reference file under an existing skill when the new guidance is really a variant of an existing workflow. Keep a separate top-level skill when separate discovery metadata matters.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 11d ago First seen · 245 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A 8aecc43b71f6
writing-skills is a skill published in the GitHub repository EzraApple/skills-init (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 1,972 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
Other skills, from other repositories
go-testing
Trigger: Go tests, go test coverage, Bubbletea teatest, golden files. Apply focused Go testing patterns.
requirements-authoring
To author, update, and validate functional/non-functional requirements as atomic units with user approval.
specflow-use
To connect Rosetta with Grid Dynamics SpecFlow MCP; only when SpecFlow is mentioned and the MCP is installed.
ijfw-workflow
Use when the user says: 'build', 'create', 'plan', 'new project', 'brainstorm', 'design', 'UI', 'website', 'dashboard', 'app', 'help me build', 'launch', 'book', 'campaign', or anything project-level. Skill body decides Quick vs Deep path.
ijfw-plan
Use when the user says 'plan this', 'plan it', 'make a plan', 'let's plan', 'draft a plan', 'how should we tackle this', 'break this down', or invokes '/ijfw-plan'. Produces a falsifiable PLAN.md (software, book, campaign, design, research) with task breakdown, dependency wave-table, and success criteria — gated by…
ijfw-writing-skills
Authoring discipline for new IJFW skills. Use when creating a new skill, writing a skill, making a skill that does X, or asked to add a skill. Trigger: create a new skill, write a skill, new skill, make me a skill, skill that does, /ijfw-writing-skills.