Skill Builder

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Tasks that involve Skill authoring

Example prompts

• “/skill-builder”

Requirements

• Python 3

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Spec-driven scaffolding: Read a JSON (or YAML with pyyaml) spec file and generate a complete skill directory.
2. 2Interactive mode: Prompt for skill details when no spec file is provided (--interactive).
3. 3Validation: Check any existing SKILL.md against the CONTRIBUTING.md checklist (--validate-only).
4. 4Auto-registration: Update skills/catalog.json and patch clawbio.py's SKILLS dict when run from inside the ClawBio repo.
5. 5Dry-run preview: Print all generated content without writing files (--dry-run).

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 5e045e3. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships script files (Python), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • python

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Skill Builder loads about 2.1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 40 tokens; SKILL.md has 647 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~40

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from ClawBio/ClawBio at commit 5e045e3, republished under its MIT licence (© ClawBio). 647 words, ~2,090 tokens.

name

skill-builder

description

Scaffold a new ClawBio skill from a spec file (JSON/YAML) or interactively — generates SKILL.md, Python skeleton, tests, and updates catalog.json

license

MIT

metadata.author

Mj

metadata.tags

meta, scaffolding, developer-tools, skill-creation

metadata.version

0.1.0

# Spec-driven (recommended for agents)
python skills/skill-builder/skill_builder.py --input spec.json --output skills/my-skill/

# Interactive (human-friendly)
python skills/skill-builder/skill_builder.py --interactive

# Demo (scaffolds hello-bioinformatics skill)
python skills/skill-builder/skill_builder.py --demo --output /tmp/skill_builder_demo

# Validate an existing SKILL.md
python skills/skill-builder/skill_builder.py --validate-only --input skills/my-skill/SKILL.md

# Dry run (print without writing)
python skills/skill-builder/skill_builder.py --input spec.json --dry-run

# Via ClawBio runner
python clawbio.py run skill-builder --demo
python clawbio.py run skill-builder --input spec.json

python clawbio.py run skill-builder --demo

{
  "name": "my-skill",
  "description": "What this skill does",
  "author": "Your Name"
}

{
  "name": "my-skill",
  "description": "One-line description of what this skill does",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "domain": "genomics",
  "capabilities": ["Capability 1", "Capability 2"],
  "trigger_keywords": ["keyword1", "another phrase"],
  "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"],
  "dependencies": {
    "required": ["package >= 1.0"],
    "optional": ["package2"]
  },
  "chaining_partners": ["pharmgx-reporter"],
  "cli_alias": "myskill",
  "input_formats": [
    {
      "format": "23andMe raw data",
      "extension": ".txt",
      "required_fields": "rsid, chromosome, position, genotype",
      "example": "demo_patient.txt"
    }
  ]
}

output_directory/
├── report.md                   # Summary of what was generated
├── result.json                 # Machine-readable scaffold manifest
└── reproducibility/
    ├── commands.sh             # Exact command to reproduce the scaffold
    ├── environment.yml         # Environment snapshot
    └── checksums.sha256        # SHA-256 of report.md and result.json

Generated skill at skills/<name>/:
├── SKILL.md                    # Complete skill definition
├── <name>.py                   # Python skeleton with --input/--output/--demo
├── tests/
│   └── test_<name>.py          # pytest skeleton with 3 standard tests
└── examples/
    └── example_spec.json       # The spec that generated this skill

© ClawBio, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 4 other files in skills/skill-builder of ClawBio/ClawBio.

• SKILL.md
• demo_spec.json
• skill_builder.py
• templates/spec_template.json
• tests/test_skill_builder.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 5e045e3

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in ClawBio/ClawBio, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skillsskills/clawbio/skill-builder