Activation Contract

Create a skill when:

• A pattern is used repeatedly and AI needs guidance
• Project-specific conventions differ from generic best practices
• Complex workflows need step-by-step instructions
• Decision trees help AI choose the right approach

Do not create a skill when the pattern is trivial, one-off, or better served by normal documentation.

Hard Rules

• When working in this repo, first follow docs/skill-style-guide.md as the normative source before creating or updating skills.
• If that guide is unavailable, use the compact inline rules below.
• A skill is a runtime instruction contract for an LLM, not human documentation.
• Do not add a Keywords section; preserve essential trigger words in description.
• References must point to local files.
• Keep the skill body concise: target 180–450 tokens, recommended max 700, hard max 1000.

Decision Gates

Execution Steps

1. Check whether docs/skill-style-guide.md exists; if it does, apply it before the inline fallback rules.
2. Confirm the skill does not already exist and the pattern is reusable.
3. Create or update skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md using this required structure:

skills/{skill-name}/
├── SKILL.md              # Required - main skill file
├── assets/               # Optional - templates, schemas, examples
│   ├── template.py
│   └── schema.json
└── references/           # Optional - links to local docs
    └── docs.md           # Points to docs/developer-guide/*.mdx

4. Use this frontmatter shape:

---
name: {skill-name}
description: "Trigger: {essential trigger words users or agents will say}. {What this skill does}."
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: gentleman-programming
  version: "1.0"
---

5. Write sections in this order: Activation Contract, Hard Rules, Decision Gates, Execution Steps, Output Contract, References.
6. Register the skill in AGENTS.md when it is a project skill.

Inline Fallback Rules

• description MUST be one physical line, quoted, YAML-safe, and include essential trigger words first.
• description SHOULD be <=160 chars and MUST be <=250 chars.
• Frontmatter MUST include name, description, license, metadata.author, and metadata.version.
• Use imperative instructions, not tutorials or background prose.
• Put supporting material in assets/ or references/, not the main skill body.

Good:

description: "Trigger: Jira task, ticket, issue, task creation. Create Jira tasks in the team format."

Bad:

description: >
  Create Jira tasks in the team format.
  Trigger: Jira task, ticket, issue, or task creation.
Keywords: jira, task

Output Contract

Return:

• Files created or modified.
• Whether the repo style guide or inline fallback rules were used.
• Any AGENTS.md registration change.
• Any supporting files added under assets/ or references/.

References

• docs/skill-style-guide.md — normative LLM-first skill style guide for this repo.