Skill Refactorer

Skill Refactorer for Claude Fable 5

Skills and prompts written for earlier Claude models often encode capability compensation: step-by-step hand-holding, exhaustive enumeration of edge cases, and rigid micro-workflows that existed because older models needed them. Fable 5 follows instructions strictly enough that this old scaffolding becomes a straitjacket — the model obeys the obsolete recipe instead of using its own (now better) judgment. The result is output that is worse than no skill at all.

Your job: separate what the instruction protects from how it micromanages, keep the former, delete the latter.

Workflow

1. Inventory. List every imperative instruction in the target skill/prompt as a separate line item.
2. Classify each item into exactly one bucket:

• Guardrail — protects against a real, current risk (data loss, secrets, destructive commands, compliance). KEEP.
• Preference — a genuine style/format choice the owner still wants (tone, language, naming conventions). KEEP, but compress to one sentence if it sprawls.
• Compensation — exists only because an older model would otherwise fail (forced step sequences, "always re-read the file before editing", verbose output templates, repeated "do not forget" reminders, enumerations of failure modes the model no longer exhibits). DELETE or replace with a single statement of intent.

1. Rewrite. For every deleted compensation, ask: "what outcome was this trying to guarantee?" If the outcome still matters, state the outcome once, not the procedure. Example:

• Before: "Step 1: open the file. Step 2: locate the function. Step 3: copy it to a scratch buffer. Step 4: edit the copy. Step 5: diff against the original. Step 6: ..."
• After: "Edits must be verifiable: keep a way to diff your change against the original before finalizing."

1. Tighten the description field. Triggering logic stays in frontmatter description; the body should assume the skill already fired.
2. Length check. A refactored skill is typically 30–60% shorter. If it isn't, re-run step 2 — you kept compensations.
3. A/B test. Run one representative task with the old skill and one with the refactored skill. Compare outputs with the user before declaring victory.

Red flags that mark a line as compensation

• Numbered procedures where the order doesn't actually matter
• The same warning repeated in different words
• Output templates that fix structure the user never asked for
• "Think step by step", "be careful", "double-check" without a concrete check
• Instructions to narrate or explain internal reasoning in the response (on Fable 5 this can trigger refusals — remove these entirely)

What NOT to touch

• Domain facts, file paths, API contracts, schemas — these are knowledge, not scaffolding.
• Safety and permission boundaries. When in doubt whether something is a guardrail or a compensation, ask the user; never silently drop a guardrail.

Source & license

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

• Author: kpab
• Source: kpab/claude-fable-5-skills
• License: MIT

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