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 Tyler-R-Kendrick/agent-skills --skill skill-authoringgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Tyler-R-Kendrick/agent-skillsWrote 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/tyler-r-kendrick/agent-skills/skill-authoring)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tyler-r-kendrick/agent-skills/skill-authoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tyler-r-kendrick/agent-skills/skill-authoring/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/tyler-r-kendrick/agent-skills/skill-authoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tyler-r-kendrick/agent-skills/skill-authoring.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 | $0.00058 | $0.00509 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00023 | $0.00204 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00012 | $0.00102 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00051 |
Grade A, and why
skill-authoring 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 2mo 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.
What it actually says
Skill Authoring Guide
This skill provides guidance for writing Agent Skills that comply with the agentskills.io specification.
When to Use
- Creating a new skill for this repository
- Reviewing a skill PR for compliance
- Checking if an existing skill follows best practices
- Understanding token budgets and progressive disclosure
Constraints
name: 1-64 chars, lowercase + hyphens, match directorydescription: 1-1024 chars, explain WHAT and WHEN- SKILL.md: <500 tokens (soft), <5000 (hard)
- references/*.md: <1000 tokens each
Structure
SKILL.md(required) - Instructionsreferences/(optional) - Detailed docsscripts/(optional) - Executable code
Frontmatter: name (lowercase-hyphens), description (WHAT + WHEN)
Progressive Disclosure
Metadata (~100 tokens) loads at startup. SKILL.md (<5000 tokens) loads on activation. References load only when explicitly linked (not on activation). Keep SKILL.md lean.
Reference Loading
References are JIT (just-in-time) loaded:
- Only files explicitly linked via
[text](references/file.md)load - Each file loads in full (not sections)
- No caching between requests - write self-contained files
- Use recipes/services patterns for multi-option skills
See REFERENCE-LOADING.md for details.
Validation
# Run from the scripts directory
cd scripts
npm run tokens -- check plugin/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md
Reference Documentation
- GUIDELINES.md - Detailed writing guidelines
- REFERENCE-LOADING.md - How references load and token efficiency
- CHECKLIST.md - Pre-submission checklist
- agentskills.io/specification - Official spec
What ships with it
3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
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.
- 2mo ago First seen · 60 lines · 58 tokens per session scan A 303f5041c1b0
skill-authoring is a skill published in the GitHub repository Tyler-R-Kendrick/agent-skills (13 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 58 tokens to every session and 509 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
skill-authoring compared with skills from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| skill-authoringTyler-R-Kendrick/agent-skills | Skill | 13 | 5mo ago | MIT | A | 58 | Claude Code |
| imagegenopenai/codex | Skill | 133k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 113 | Codex |
| playwright-climicrosoft/playwright | Skill | 99k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 19 | Claude Code |
| local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners | Skill | 79k | 4d ago | MIT | A | 200 | Claude Code, Codex |
| systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers | Skill | 313k | 3d ago | MIT | A | 21 | Claude Code |
| next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js | Skill | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 95 | Claude Code |
| next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.js | Skill | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 103 | Claude Code |