update-skill

A guide for creating or updating skills in a repository. A skill is a folder containing instructions that an AI coding agent follows for a particular type of work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to write a new SKILL.md file or revise an existing skill's instructions, metadata, and supporting structure.
Why use it?
It helps keep skill files discoverable and consistently structured, including their required name, description, and usage guidance.

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/warpdotdev/common-skills/update-skill
Any agent
npx skills add warpdotdev/common-skills --skill update-skill
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/warpdotdev/common-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 44 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,067 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found 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 $0.00044 $0.01067
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00534
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00213
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00107

Measured 3d ago against content hash 93d57602e1fc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

update-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 3d 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.

.agents/skills/update-skill/SKILL.md · 114 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 114 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

update-skill

This guide provides instructions for creating or updating skills in this repository. It covers the required structure, frontmatter, and best practices for skills.

Quick Start

Every skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter and markdown body:

---
name: pdf-processing
description: Extract text and tables from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents.
---

# PDF Processing

## When to use this skill
Use this skill when the user needs to work with PDF files...

## How to extract text
1. Use pdfplumber for text extraction...

## How to fill forms
...

Requirements

Frontmatter (Required)

Every SKILL.md must start with YAML frontmatter containing:

  • name: Kebab-case identifier (lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens only)
    • Example: add-feature-flag, pdf-processing, update-skill
  • description: Specific description of what the skill does and when to use it
    • Must be non-empty
    • Should include key terms for skill discovery
    • Begin with an action verb to clearly state what the skill accomplishes (e.g., "Adds feature flags..." instead of "Helps with features..."), and immediately follow with a specific use case or context (e.g., "Use when working with feature flags")
    • Write in third person (e.g., "Adds feature flags..." not "I can help you add...")

Writing Effective Descriptions

The description field is critical for skill discovery. Include both what the skill does and when to use it. Some good examples:

  • git-commit: "Generate descriptive commit messages by analyzing git diffs. Use when the user asks for help writing commit messages or reviewing staged changes."
  • pdf-processing: "Extract text and tables from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents. Use when working with PDF files or when the user mentions PDFs, forms, or document extraction."

Avoid vague descriptions like "Helps with code" or "Does development tasks". For more context, see "Description Best Practices" in references/best-practices.md.

Read the full file on GitHub · 114 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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.

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. 3d ago First seen · 114 lines · 44 tokens per session scan A 93d57602e1fc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

update-skill is a skill published in the GitHub repository warpdotdev/common-skills (413 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 44 tokens to every session and 1,067 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 2026-08-30.

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