skill-updater

Skill Updater

Execute skill improvement plans by making specific edits to skill files, validating the changes, and prompting the user to sync.

When to Use

• After skill-improvement-plan generates a plan and the user says "go"
• When you have a clear list of edits to make across skills
• When applying fixes from a review report directly (skipping the planning step for simple fixes)

Inputs

• Improvement plan — a structured plan from skill-improvement-plan, OR a list of specific changes to make
• Scope (optional) — which priority levels to execute (e.g., "just P0", "P0 and P1", "all")

Process

Step 1: Parse the Plan

Read the improvement plan. Extract the ordered list of changes with:

• Target skill and file path
• What to change
• The specific edit (old text → new text, new content, file to create/delete)

If the user provided ad-hoc changes instead of a formal plan, organize them into the same structure.

Step 2: Validate Before Editing

For each change, before applying:

1. Read the target file — confirm it exists and the content matches expectations
2. Check for conflicts — if multiple changes target the same file, plan the edit order to avoid conflicts
3. Verify ownership — if changing owns fields, check against other skills for overlaps

If anything doesn't match expectations (file content changed since the review, file doesn't exist), flag it and ask the user before proceeding.

Step 3: Apply Changes

Execute changes in priority order (P0 first, then P1, etc.):

For frontmatter edits:

• Use Edit tool to modify specific frontmatter fields
• Preserve YAML formatting and field order

For description rewrites:

• Replace the entire description field with the new text from the plan
• Verify the new description follows the patterns (action verb, trigger contexts)

For content restructuring:

• If moving content to a new reference file: create the reference file first, then edit the body to add the pointer and remove the moved content
• If merging sections: read both sources, combine, write the merged version