writing-skillslisted

# Writing Skills A skill is a focused, reusable piece of expertise that activates when its trigger fires. Write skills that are sharp, short, and unmistakable in scope. Vague skills never get invoked. ## Iron Law **A skill description MUST start with "Use when..." and name a concrete trigger.** If the trigger is "use when coding," the skill is useless. ## Anatomy of a SKILL.md ```markdown --- name: kebab-case-name description: Use when <concrete trigger>. <One-line method or rule>. --- # Human-Readable Title One paragraph: what this skill is for, who needs it, what it replaces. ## Iron Law (or MUST) The single most important rule. One sentence. ## When to use this - Specific situation 1 - Specific situation 2 ## When NOT to use this - Adjacent skill that owns this instead → see [[that-skill]] ## The flow / checklist / phases Step-by-step or bulleted, depending on the shape of the content. ## Red Flags Concrete signs you're doing it wrong. Quoted phrases work well ("It should work", "I'll fix it later"). ## Cross-references - [[related-skill-1]] — why and when - [[related-skill-2]] — why and when ``` ## Description Rules The `description` is what the skill loader matches against the user's intent. It MUST be: - **Triggered**: starts with "Use when..." or "Use BEFORE..." - **Specific**: names a situation, not a topic - **Single-sentence**: one comma is fine, two is too many | Bad | Why bad | Better | |---|---|---| | "For programming tasks" | Matches every