Writing your first skill

You already have a skill in you: the thing you keep typing into every session. Write it down once. 1. Make a folder named after the job, such as release-notes, and put a SKILL.md inside it. 2. Start the file with a short header: a name, and a description that says when to use it. The description is what the agent matches tasks against, so be specific. "Use when writing release notes from merged pull requests" beats "Helps with docs". 3. Below the header, write the method as steps. Say what good output looks like, what to check before finishing, and what never to do. Write for a capable colleague who has never seen your project. 4. Keep it short. Move long reference material into separate files in the folder and point to them, so the agent loads them only when it needs them. 5. Test it on a real task. When the agent goes wrong, fix the instruction that let it, not just the output. Put project skills in the repository so the whole team shares them. Anthropic's skills repository has well-written examples to copy, including a skill whose whole job is helping you write new skills.