write-a-skill

A guide for creating agent skills with a standard structure, clear triggers, and optional reference files or utility scripts. An agent skill is a reusable set of instructions for handling a particular kind of task.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when writing or building a new skill. It helps define the task, create its files, add scripts or references when needed, and review the result.
Why use it?
It helps turn an informal workflow into instructions that an agent can apply consistently. It also encourages keeping the main instructions concise and moving detailed material into supporting files.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/modernweb-dev/rocket/write-a-skill
Any agent
npx skills add modernweb-dev/rocket --skill write-a-skill
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/modernweb-dev/rocket

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 35 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 664 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00035 $0.00664
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00332
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00133
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00066

Measured 2d ago against content hash be8f20e66309, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

write-a-skill 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 2d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to write-a-skill — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.agents/skills/write-a-skill/SKILL.md · 118 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 118 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Writing Skills

Process

  1. Gather requirements - ask user about:

    • What task/domain does the skill cover?
    • What specific use cases should it handle?
    • Does it need executable scripts or just instructions?
    • Any reference materials to include?
  2. Draft the skill - create:

    • SKILL.md with concise instructions
    • Additional reference files if content exceeds 500 lines
    • Utility scripts if deterministic operations needed
  3. Review with user - present draft and ask:

    • Does this cover your use cases?
    • Anything missing or unclear?
    • Should any section be more/less detailed?

Skill Structure

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md           # Main instructions (required)
├── REFERENCE.md       # Detailed docs (if needed)
├── EXAMPLES.md        # Usage examples (if needed)
└── scripts/           # Utility scripts (if needed)
    └── helper.js

SKILL.md Template

---
name: skill-name
description: Brief description of capability. Use when [specific triggers].
---

# Skill Name

## Quick start

[Minimal working example]

## Workflows

[Step-by-step processes with checklists for complex tasks]

## Advanced features

[Link to separate files: See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md)]

Description Requirements

The description is the only thing your agent sees when deciding which skill to load. It's surfaced in the system prompt alongside all other installed skills. Your agent reads these descriptions and picks the relevant skill based on the user's request.

Goal: Give your agent just enough info to know:

  1. What capability this skill provides
  2. When/why to trigger it (specific keywords, contexts, file types)

Format:

  • Max 1024 chars
  • Write in third person
  • First sentence: what it does
  • Second sentence: "Use when [specific triggers]"

Good example:

Extract text and tables from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents. Use when working with PDF files or when user mentions PDFs, forms, or document extraction.

Read the full file on GitHub · 118 lines

Changes

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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 118 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A be8f20e66309

Subscribe to this mod's changes

write-a-skill is a skill published in the GitHub repository modernweb-dev/rocket (394 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 664 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to write-a-skill, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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