Context

Use this skill when authoring or revising a skill that can mutate files, state, repositories, or external systems. Informational reference skills need not carry operational ceremony.

Patterns

• Start with an explicit ## SCOPE: activation conditions, allowed targets, and exclusions.
• Provide an ordered, deterministic workflow. State required inputs, the intended side effect, and the exact validation after each consequential operation.
• Define STOP conditions for missing prerequisites, ambiguous scope, failed verification, and unavailable tools. A failed precondition must not look like success.
• Point to a current canonical implementation or workflow when a procedure depends on repository behavior; do not copy volatile values into prose.
• Keep one skill focused on one operational boundary. Link to related skills rather than combining unrelated governance, release, and documentation procedures.

Examples

archival-integrity defines a verified append-before-trim transaction. gh-aw-enlistment limits mutations through an explicit allowlist and ends with strict compilation.

Anti-Patterns

• Vague verbs such as “handle,” “ensure,” or “fix” without an observable success condition
• Side effects that proceed after a failed validation
• Treating a dated incident workaround as a permanent procedure without reconciling source
• Adding action ceremony to a purely explanatory skill