gentle-ai-skill-creator

Activation Contract

Use this skill when creating or updating a reusable AI skill for Pi or another agent runtime.

Create a skill when:

• a workflow or convention is reused across sessions;
• generic agent behavior needs project-specific constraints;
• a decision tree helps the agent choose safely;
• examples, templates, or references would make future execution more reliable.

Do not create a skill for a one-off task, generic documentation, or rules that belong in code/tests.

Hard Rules

• Follow docs/skill-style-guide.md as the normative source for skill structure and style.
• A skill is an LLM runtime contract, not human-facing docs.
• Keep SKILL.md concise: target 180–450 tokens, max 1000.
• Use imperative instructions and concrete gates; avoid tutorials and background prose.
• Frontmatter description must be one physical YAML-safe line and include trigger words first.
• Do not add a Keywords section; put essential trigger words in description.
• Put templates, schemas, and generated examples in assets/.
• Put longer rationale or local doc links in references/.
• After changing project skills, refresh the registry with /skill-registry:refresh when available.

Decision Gates

Need	Action
Small reusable behavior	Create skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md only
Templates, schemas, fixtures	Add skills/{skill-name}/assets/
Longer explanation or edge cases	Add skills/{skill-name}/references/
Existing skill covers it	Update the existing skill instead
Skill affects delegation discovery	Ensure trigger words appear in description

Execution Steps

1. Read docs/skill-style-guide.md before creating or updating skills.
2. Inspect existing skills and confirm the new skill does not duplicate one.
3. Choose a kebab-case skill name that matches the user-facing trigger.
4. Create or update this structure:

skills/{skill-name}/
├── SKILL.md
├── assets/       # optional
└── references/   # optional

5. Use this frontmatter shape:

---
name: {skill-name}
description: "Trigger: {phrases users or agents will say}. {What this skill does}."
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: gentleman-programming
  version: "1.0"
---

6. Write sections in this order: Activation Contract, Hard Rules, Decision Gates, Execution Steps, Output Contract, References.
7. If this is a packaged gentle-pi skill, add it to scripts/verify-package-files.mjs.
8. Refresh or document the skill registry update path.

Output Contract

Return:

• Files created or modified.
• Whether this created a new skill or updated an existing one.
• Any supporting assets/ or references/ files added.
• Whether package verification or skill registry refresh is needed.

References

• docs/skill-style-guide.md — normative LLM-first skill style guide.
• skills/skill-registry/SKILL.md — registry refresh and indexing contract.