Building Agent Skills
Assists in creating Agent Skills of varying complexity levels (simple, moderate, complex). Use when the user wants to create, design, or build a new Agent Skill, or when they need guidance on skill architecture, workflow design, schema validation, or template structure.
Best use case
Building Agent Skills is best used when you need a repeatable AI agent workflow instead of a one-off prompt.
Assists in creating Agent Skills of varying complexity levels (simple, moderate, complex). Use when the user wants to create, design, or build a new Agent Skill, or when they need guidance on skill architecture, workflow design, schema validation, or template structure.
Teams using Building Agent Skills should expect a more consistent output, faster repeated execution, less prompt rewriting.
When to use this skill
- You want a reusable workflow that can be run more than once with consistent structure.
When not to use this skill
- You only need a quick one-off answer and do not need a reusable workflow.
- You cannot install or maintain the underlying files, dependencies, or repository context.
Installation
Claude Code / Cursor / Codex
Manual Installation
- Download SKILL.md from GitHub
- Place it in
.claude/skills/building-agent-skills/SKILL.mdinside your project - Restart your AI agent — it will auto-discover the skill
How Building Agent Skills Compares
| Feature / Agent | Building Agent Skills | Standard Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Support | Not specified | Limited / Varies |
| Context Awareness | High | Baseline |
| Installation Complexity | Unknown | N/A |
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this skill do?
Assists in creating Agent Skills of varying complexity levels (simple, moderate, complex). Use when the user wants to create, design, or build a new Agent Skill, or when they need guidance on skill architecture, workflow design, schema validation, or template structure.
Where can I find the source code?
You can find the source code on GitHub using the link provided at the top of the page.
SKILL.md Source
# Overview
This skill enables the creation of Agent Skills following established best practices and patterns. It provides a structured workflow for gathering requirements, determining appropriate complexity (archetype), planning structure, generating artifacts, and validating the resulting skill.
The skill supports three archetypes:
- **Simple**: Single SKILL.md with inline instructions
- **Moderate**: SKILL.md with separate reference files
- **Complex**: Full Phase/Stage/Step hierarchy with schemas and scripts
# Table of Contents
- [Overview](#overview)
- [Table of Contents](#table-of-contents)
- [Prerequisites](#prerequisites)
- [Workflow: Building Agent Skills](#workflow-building-agent-skills)
- [Important Workflow Guidelines](#important-workflow-guidelines)
- [Phase 1: Discovery](#phase-1-discovery)
- [Stage 1: Requirements Gathering](#stage-1-requirements-gathering)
- [Stage 2: Analysis](#stage-2-analysis)
- [Phase 2: Planning](#phase-2-planning)
- [Stage 3: Design](#stage-3-design)
- [Phase 3: Implementation](#phase-3-implementation)
- [Stage 4: Foundation](#stage-4-foundation)
- [Stage 5: References](#stage-5-references)
- [Stage 6: Automation](#stage-6-automation)
- [Phase 4: Validation](#phase-4-validation)
- [Stage 7: Quality Assurance](#stage-7-quality-assurance)
- [Phase 5: Iteration](#phase-5-iteration)
- [Stage 8: Refinement](#stage-8-refinement)
# Prerequisites
**Before starting the workflow** you **MUST**:
1. Present complete workflow structure (Phases, Stages, Steps) to user
2. Explain Phase approval gates
3. Wait for user acknowledgment
# Workflow: Building Agent Skills
This workflow guides you through creating an Agent Skill from requirements to validation. The workflow is organized into five distinct phases:
**Phase 1: Discovery** - Gather requirements and analyze complexity needs.
**Phase 2: Planning** - Design the skill structure and file organization.
**Phase 3: Implementation** - Generate all skill artifacts.
**Phase 4: Validation** - Verify skill correctness and quality.
**Phase 5: Iteration** - Refine based on feedback and ensure readiness.
## Important Workflow Guidelines
**When executing this workflow** you **MUST**:
- Follow Phases, Stages, and Steps in order
- Announce Stage completions to the user
- Present complete Phase output at Phase boundaries
- Obtain explicit user approval before proceeding to the next Phase
## Phase 1: Discovery
### Stage 1: Requirements Gathering
**Objective**: Understand what the user needs to build
#### Step 1: Gathering Requirements
See [Gathering Requirements Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/01-gathering-requirements.md) for detailed guidance.
### Stage 2: Analysis
**Objective**: Determine appropriate skill architecture
#### Step 2: Determining Archetype
See [Determining Archetype Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/02-determining-archetype.md) for detailed guidance.
---
**Phase 1 Approval Gate:** Present complete requirements and archetype decision. Obtain explicit user approval before Phase 2.
---
## Phase 2: Planning
### Stage 3: Design
**Objective**: Create approved blueprint for the skill
#### Step 3: Planning Structure
See [Planning Structure Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/03-planning-structure.md) for detailed guidance.
---
**Phase 2 Approval Gate:** Present complete structure plan including file manifest and generation order. Obtain explicit user approval before Phase 3.
---
## Phase 3: Implementation
### Stage 4: Foundation
**Objective**: Generate core skill definition
#### Step 4: Generating SKILL.md
See [Generating SKILL.md Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/04-generating-skill-md.md) for detailed guidance.
### Stage 5: References
**Objective**: Generate supporting documentation
#### Step 5: Generating Workflow References
See [Generating Workflow References Step Reference](references/workflow/05-generating-workflow-references.md) for detailed guidance.
#### Step 6: Generating Schemas
See [Generating Schemas Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/06-generating-schemas.md) for detailed guidance.
### Stage 6: Automation
**Objective**: Generate executable components
#### Step 7: Generating Scripts
See [Generating Scripts Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/07-generating-scripts.md) for detailed guidance.
---
**Phase 3 Approval Gate:** Present all generated artifacts for review. Obtain explicit user approval before Phase 4.
---
## Phase 4: Validation
### Stage 7: Quality Assurance
**Objective**: Verify skill correctness
#### Step 8: Validating Skill
See [Validating Skill Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/08-validating-skill.md) for detailed guidance.
---
**Phase 4 Approval Gate:** Present validation results. Obtain explicit user approval before Phase 5.
---
## Phase 5: Iteration
### Stage 8: Refinement
**Objective**: Incorporate user feedback
#### Step 9: Iterating on Feedback
See [Iterating on Feedback Workflow Step Reference](references/workflow/09-iterating-on-feedback.md) for detailed guidance.Related Skills
building-a-work-plan
Use when orchestrating the creation of a work plan from a design document. Manages branch setup, codebase investigation, milestone planning, and execution handoff.
amplitude-ui-skills
Amplitude's UI design system. Use when building interfaces inspired by Amplitude's aesthetic - light mode, Inter font, 4px grid.
ai-native-product-building
Rapidly build, prototype, and deploy full-stack software using AI "text-to-app" tools. Use this when you need to create a greenfield application, build a high-fidelity working prototype for user testing, or bypass traditional engineering bottlenecks for internal tools.
writing-skills
Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment - applies TDD to process documentation by testing with subagents before writing, iterating until bulletproof against rationalization
treido-skillsmith
Skill-system maintainer for Treido. Use to create/merge/trim skills, enforce treido-* naming, and keep `.codex/skills` minimal and consistent.
skills-management
Search, find, discover, install, remove, update, review, list, and move skills for AI coding agents. Use when user asks "find a skill for X", "search for a skill", "is there a skill for X", "install skill", "remove skill", "update skills", "list skills", "review skill quality", "move skill", "check for updates", or "how do I do X" where X might have an existing skill. This is THE tool for skill discovery and ecosystem search.
sarvam-ai-skills
Guide for building AI applications with Sarvam AI APIs for Indian languages. Use when working with speech-to-text transcription, text-to-speech synthesis, text translation, chat completion, or document intelligence. Covers models saarika:v2.5, saaras:v2.5/v3, bulbul:v3, mayura:v1, sarvam-translate:v1, sarvam-m, and sarvam-vision for 11-23 Indian languages. Trigger when user asks about Indian language AI, STT, TTS, translation, multilingual chatbots, voice assistants, or document processing.
rules-vs-skills
Explain when to use always-on Rules vs on-demand Skills. Use when the team is confused about where to encode guidance, deciding between rules and skills, or understanding the difference between invariants and procedures.
reinforce-skills
This skill should be used when the user asks to 'reinforce skills', 'add skill map', 'update skill map', 'sync skills to CLAUDE.md', 'persist skills', 'save skills to project', 'embed skills', 'skills keep getting forgotten', 'I keep forgetting skills', or when setting up a new project where installed skills should be persisted as context. Generates a compressed skill-mapping directive in CLAUDE.md following the Vercel AGENTS.md research pattern.
mixseek-skills
MixSeek Agent Skills collection for AI coding assistants. Provides workspace management, team configuration, evaluation setup, and debugging tools for MixSeek-Core.
managing-skills
Install, find, update, and manage agent skills. Use when the user wants to add a new skill, search for skills that do something, check if skills are up to date, or update existing skills. Triggers on: install skill, add skill, get skill, find skill, search skill, update skill, check skills, list skills.
find-skills
Find and install agent skills with `npx playbooks find skill` and `npx playbooks add skill`. Use whenever a skill needs to be discovered or installed.