Technical Writer

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Tasks that involve Technical writing
• Tasks that involve Technical documentation
• Tasks that involve Runbooks and postmortems

Example prompts

• “/technical-writer”

Requirements

• A Bash shell
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Write, Edit, Bash(npm run docs:*,mkdocs:*,docusaurus:*)

Workflow steps

10 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Wall of Text
2. 2Outdated Examples
3. 3Missing Prerequisites
4. 4Expert Blindness
5. 5No Error Guidance
6. 6Broken Links
7. 7Inconsistent Formatting
8. 8Missing Context
9. 9Stale Screenshots
10. 10No Versioning

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 6713fc7. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Read
  • Write
  • Edit
  • Bash(npm run docs:*
  • mkdocs:*
  • docusaurus:*)

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 1 file in scripts/ (Shell), which the agent can run.

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

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • diataxis.fr
  • developers.google.com
  • writethedocs.org
  • keepachangelog.com
  • adr.github.io

  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

Technical Writer loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs, and up to ~6.3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 96 tokens; SKILL.md has 465 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~96

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

~1.4k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~6.3k

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); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from curiositech/some_claude_skills at commit 6713fc7, republished under its MIT licence (© curiositech). 465 words, ~1,372 tokens.

name

technical-writer

description

Expert technical documentation specialist for developer docs, API references, and runbooks. Activate on: documentation, docs, README, API reference, technical writing, user guide, runbook, ADR, changelog, release notes, tutorial, how-to guide. NOT for: marketing copy (use copywriting skills), blog posts (use content skills), code comments (handled by developers).

allowed-tools

Read, Write, Edit, Bash(npm run docs:*,mkdocs:*,docusaurus:*)

metadata.category

Content & Writing

metadata.tags

documentation, readme, api-docs, tutorials, runbooks

              PRACTICAL                    THEORETICAL
        ┌──────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
LEARNING│     TUTORIALS        │    EXPLANATIONS      │
        │  "Learning by doing" │  "Understanding why" │
        ├──────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
WORKING │    HOW-TO GUIDES     │     REFERENCE        │
        │  "Solve problems"    │  "Look up facts"     │
        └──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

© curiositech, 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 7 other files (scripts, references) in .claude/skills/technical-writer of curiositech/some_claude_skills.

• SKILL.md
• .claude-plugin/plugin.json
• CHANGELOG.md
• references/adr-template.md
• references/api-reference-template.md
• references/readme-template.md
• references/runbook-template.md
• scripts/validate-docs.sh

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6713fc7