Skill Creator

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Writing a new skill for a workflow the agent keeps getting wrong
• Deciding whether a pattern deserves a skill or just documentation
• Checking a skill's frontmatter and section order against the style guide

Example prompts

• “Create a skill that captures how we name database migrations in this repo.”
• “Is our release checklist worth turning into a skill, or should it stay in the docs?”
• “Review skills/api-errors/SKILL.md against the style guide and fix the frontmatter.”

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Check whether docs/skill-style-guide.md exists; if it does, apply it before the bundled local copy or inline fallback rules.
2. 2If the repo guide is unavailable, read references/skill-style-guide.md and apply it before the inline fallback rules.
3. 3Confirm the skill does not already exist and the pattern is reusable.
4. 4Create or update skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md using this required structure
5. 5Use this frontmatter shape
6. 6Write sections in this order: Activation Contract, Hard Rules, Decision Gates, Execution Steps, Output Contract, References.
7. 7Register the skill in AGENTS.md when it is a project skill.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 81d2225. 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

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are yaml and markdown).

  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 Creator loads about 998 tokens when it runs, and up to ~1.8k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 33 tokens; SKILL.md has 394 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~33

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

~998

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

~1.8k

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 Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai at commit 81d2225, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© Gentleman-Programming). 394 words, ~998 tokens.

name

skill-creator

description

Trigger: new skills, agent instructions, documenting AI usage patterns. Create LLM-first skills with valid frontmatter.

license

Apache-2.0

metadata.author

gentleman-programming

metadata.version

1.0

skills/{skill-name}/
├── SKILL.md              # Required - main skill file
├── assets/               # Optional - templates, schemas, examples
│   ├── template.py
│   └── schema.json
└── references/           # Optional - links to local docs
    └── docs.md           # Points to docs/developer-guide/*.mdx

---
name: {skill-name}
description: "Trigger: {essential trigger words users or agents will say}. {What this skill does}."
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: "{your-github-username}"
  version: "1.0"
---

description: "Trigger: Jira task, ticket, issue, task creation. Create Jira tasks in the team format."

description: >
  Create Jira tasks in the team format.
  Trigger: Jira task, ticket, issue, or task creation.
Keywords: jira, task

© Gentleman-Programming, Apache-2.0. 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 1 other file (references) in internal/assets/skills/skill-creator of Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai.

• SKILL.md
• references/skill-style-guide.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 81d2225