Skill Creator Pro

Creates, improves, and tests Agent Skills for any domain — engineering, content creation, research, personal productivity, and beyond.

Workflow Overview

Phase 1: Understand  →  Phase 2: Design  →  Phase 3: Write
Phase 4: Test        →  Phase 5: Improve →  Phase 6: Optimize

Jump in at the right phase based on where the user is: - "I want to make a skill for X" → Start at Phase 1 - "Here's my skill draft, help me improve it" → Start at Phase 4 - "My skill isn't triggering correctly" → Start at Phase 6 - "Just vibe with me" → Skip phases as needed, stay flexible

Cool? Cool.

Communicating with the user

The skill creator is liable to be used by people across a wide range of familiarity with coding jargon. If you haven't heard (and how could you, it's only very recently that it started), there's a trend now where the power of Claude is inspiring plumbers to open up their terminals, parents and grandparents to google "how to install npm". On the other hand, the bulk of users are probably fairly computer-literate.

So please pay attention to context cues to understand how to phrase your communication! In the default case, just to give you some idea:

• "evaluation" and "benchmark" are borderline, but OK
• for "JSON" and "assertion" you want to see serious cues from the user that they know what those things are before using them without explaining them

It's OK to briefly explain terms if you're in doubt, and feel free to clarify terms with a short definition if you're unsure if the user will get it.

Phase 1: Understand

This phase uses the Inversion pattern — ask first, build later. If the current conversation already contains a workflow the user wants to capture (e.g., "turn this into a skill"), extract answers from the conversation history first before asking.

Ask these questions one at a time, wait for each answer. DO NOT proceed to Phase 2 until all required questions are answered.

Q1 (Required): What should this skill enable Claude to do?

Q2 (Required): When should it trigger? What would a user say to invoke it?

Q3 (Required): Which content pattern fits best? Read references/content-patterns.md and recommend 1-2 patterns with brief reasoning. Let the user confirm before continuing.

Q4: What's the expected output format?

Q5: Should we set up test cases? Skills with objectively verifiable outputs (file transforms, data extraction, fixed workflows) benefit from test cases. Skills with subjective outputs (writing style, art direction) often don't need them. Suggest the appropriate default, but let the user decide.

Gate: All required questions answered + content pattern confirmed → proceed to Phase 2.

Interview and Research

After the 5 questions, proactively ask about edge cases, input/output formats, example files, success criteria, and dependencies. Wait to write test prompts until you've got this part ironed out.

Check available MCPs — if useful for research (searching docs, finding similar skills, looking up best practices), research in parallel via subagents if available, otherwise inline.

Phase 2: Design

Before writing, read: - references/content-patterns.md — apply the confirmed pattern's structure - references/design_principles.md — 5 principles to follow - references/patterns.md — implementation patterns (config.json, gotchas, script reuse, etc.)

Decide: - File structure needed (scripts/ / references/ / assets/) - Whether config.json setup is needed (user needs to provide personal config) - Whether on-demand hooks are needed

Gate: Design decisions clear → proceed to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Write

Based on the interview and design decisions, write the SKILL.md.

Components

• name: Skill identifier (kebab-case, no "claude" or "anthropic" — see references/constraints_and_rules.md)
• description: The primary triggering mechanism. Include what the skill does AND when to use it. Follow the formula: [What it does] + [When to use] + [Trigger phrases]. Under 1024 characters, no XML angle brackets. Make it slightly "pushy" to combat undertriggering — see references/constraints_and_rules.md for guidance.
• compatibility: Required tools/dependencies (optional, rarely needed)
• the rest of the skill :)

Skill Writing Guide

Before writing, read: - references/content-patterns.md — apply the confirmed pattern's structure to the SKILL.md body - references/design_principles.md — 5 design principles - references/constraints_and_rules.md — technical constraints, naming conventions - Keep references/quick_checklist.md handy for pre-publication verification

Anatomy of a Skill

``` skill-name/ ├── SKILL.md (required) │ ├── YAML frontmatter (name, description required) │ └── Markdown instructions └── Bundled Resources (optional) ├── scripts/ - Executable code for deterministic/repetitive tasks ├── references/ - Docs loaded into context as