Skill Creator

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.
• For installed global skills, use references/skill-style-guide.md as the bundled local copy of that guide when docs/skill-style-guide.md is unavailable.
• If neither guide is available, 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

| Need | Action | |------|--------| | Code templates, schemas, fixtures, generated examples | Put them in assets/ | | Conceptual detail, edge cases, existing docs | Put local links in references/ | | Long explanation in SKILL.md | Move it to a supporting file | | Multiple meaningful paths | Add a compact decision table |

Execution Steps

1. Check whether docs/skill-style-guide.md exists; if it does, apply it before the bundled local copy or inline fallback rules.
2. If the repo guide is unavailable, read references/skill-style-guide.md and apply it before the inline fallback rules.
3. Confirm the skill does not already exist and the pattern is reusable.
4. 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

1. 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: "{your-github-username}"
  version: "1.0"
---

1. Write sections in this order: Activation Contract, Hard Rules, Decision Gates, Execution Steps, Output Contract, References.
2. 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

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.
- `references/skill-style-guide.md` — bundled local copy for installed global skills when the repo doc is unavailable.

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [Gentleman-Programming](https://github.com/Gentleman-Programming)
- **Source:** [Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai](https://github.com/Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://gentle-ai.gentlemanprogramming.com/

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.