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Official agent skill

Skill Authoring

by grafana in grafana/skills

Author, audit, and improve Grafana SKILL.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability…

OfficialApache-2.0Auto-check passedDevOps & Cloud

Install Skill Authoring

skills CLI
$ npx skills add grafana/skills --skill skill-authoring -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install grafana/skills skill-authoring --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/grafana/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/grafana-core/skill-authoring .claude/skills/skill-authoring && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
skill-authoring
GitHub stars
281
Token cost
~1.8k tokens
SKILL.md length
653 words
Files
5 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
51
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

Author, audit, and improve Grafana SKILL.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability…

  • Works in 8 steps: Description is the primary trigger —… → Body under 500 lines — split into… → One level of nesting for references —… → …
  • The three-level progressive-disclosure model
  • SKILL.md covers Critical rules (always), The rubric, Score variance and Decision tree for a new skill, plus 3 more sections
  • Calls jq

What it does

Skill Authoring is an agent skill from grafana/skills, published by the product's own GitHub organization. Author, audit, and improve Grafana SKILL.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability, workflow clarity, progressive disclosure). Applies the canonical SKILL.md structure (YAML frontmatter + body + references/ + scripts/ + assets/), the "pushy description" trigger pattern, the three-level progressive-disclosure model, and the validate-fix-rerun feedback loop. Use when creating a new skill in this repo, when…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.8k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 5 other files, including reference files (for example `references/anatomy.md`, `references/anti-patterns.md` and `references/descriptions.md`).

It sits in DevOps & Cloud, covering Monitoring and alerting, Skill authoring and Quizzes and assessments. It works with Grafana. The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • The three-level progressive-disclosure model
  • The validate-fix-rerun feedback loop
  • Creating a new skill in this repo
  • Reviewing a skill PR

Example prompts

  • “pushy description”
  • “s Tessl review score is below 75 (the merge gate), when a skill”
  • “t say”
  • “/skill-authoring”

Workflow steps

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

  1. Description is the primary trigger — third-person, ≤1024 chars, must include explicit "Use when..." phrasing AND list concrete trigger…
  2. Body under 500 lines — split into references/*.md if approaching the limit. SKILL.md is the routing layer, not the entire knowledge base.
  3. One level of nesting for references — link from SKILL.md directly, never SKILL.md → a.md → b.md. Claude may use head -100 previews on…
  4. Imperative voice — "Run X" not "You should run X" not "It is important to run X". Explain why over heavy-handed MUST markers.
  5. Concrete examples beat prose — copy-paste-ready commands, real config snippets. Tessl's actionability dimension scores this directly.
  6. No reserved words in name — anthropic and claude are forbidden in skill names.
  7. No time-sensitive language in the body — "after August 2025…" rots. Use an "Old patterns" section for legacy info instead.
  8. Validate before committing — ./scripts/lint-skills.sh skills// clean + Tessl score ≥75 (run tessl skill review --json ).

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 1ccacf2. 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

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • jq

    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):

    • platform.claude.com
    • github.com
    • resources.anthropic.com

    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 Authoring loads about 1.8k tokens when it runs, and up to ~9.3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 231 tokens; SKILL.md has 653 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~231
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.8k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~9.3k

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

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

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 grafana/skills at commit 1ccacf2, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© grafana). 653 words, ~1,787 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/skill-authoring/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 4 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
skill-authoring
description
Author, audit, and improve Grafana SKILL.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability, workflow clarity, progressive disclosure). Applies the canonical SKILL.md structure (YAML frontmatter + body + references/ + scripts/ + assets/), the "pushy description" trigger pattern, the three-level progressive-disclosure model, and the validate-fix-rerun feedback loop. Use when creating a new skill in this repo, when reviewing a skill PR, when a skill's Tessl review score is below 75 (the merge gate), when a skill's description isn't getting picked up by agents, when restructuring a long SKILL.md into a bundle, or when the user asks how to write, improve, optimize, audit, or fix a skill - even if they don't say "skill" explicitly (e.g. "this isn't triggering", "Tessl scored this 72", "split this doc").
license
Apache-2.0

Authoring & Improving Grafana Skills

How to write, review, and improve SKILL.md files so they pass the repo's CI gate and score well against the Anthropic-aligned rubric Tessl uses.

Critical rules (always)

  1. Description is the primary trigger — third-person, ≤1024 chars, must include explicit "Use when..." phrasing AND list concrete trigger terms users naturally say. See references/descriptions.md for the pushy-description pattern that combats undertriggering.
  2. Body under 500 lines — split into references/*.md if approaching the limit. SKILL.md is the routing layer, not the entire knowledge base.
  3. One level of nesting for references — link from SKILL.md directly, never SKILL.md → a.md → b.md. Claude may use head -100 previews on nested chains and miss content.
  4. Imperative voice — "Run X" not "You should run X" not "It is important to run X". Explain why over heavy-handed MUST markers.
  5. Concrete examples beat prose — copy-paste-ready commands, real config snippets. Tessl's actionability dimension scores this directly.
  6. No reserved words in name — anthropic and claude are forbidden in skill names.
  7. No time-sensitive language in the body — "after August 2025…" rots. Use an <details> "Old patterns" section for legacy info instead.
  8. Validate before committing — ./scripts/lint-skills.sh skills/<plugin>/<your-skill> clean + Tessl score ≥75 (run tessl skill review --json <dir>).

The rubric

CI fails any PR where a touched SKILL.md scores below 75 on four 0-3 dimensions: conciseness, actionability, workflow clarity, progressive disclosure. Full per-dimension scoring + Anthropic-doc mapping in references/rubric.md.

Score variance

The judge is an LLM and swings 7-10 points run-to-run. Local 94 commonly lands at CI 85. Ship only on three consecutive local 100s.

Decision tree for a new skill

  1. What product / domain does this skill belong to? Pick the right plugin folder: grafana-core/, grafana-cloud/, grafana-lgtm/, grafana-app-sdk/, grafana-k6/, grafana-plugins/. If none fits cleanly, ask the user before creating a new plugin group (a new group requires updating three marketplace.json files).

  2. Estimate body length.

  3. Write a "pushy" description first. The description is the only thing always loaded into context. If agents don't trigger the skill, nothing else matters. See references/descriptions.md for the pattern.

  4. Draft body with the four-dimension rubric in mind.

    • Cut every sentence Claude already knows (Conciseness)
    • Replace prose explanations with code blocks (Actionability)
    • Number every multi-step procedure + add a validation step at the end (Workflow clarity)
    • If you reach for <details>, consider whether that content belongs in references/ instead (Progressive disclosure)

  5. Register in marketplace manifests. Add the skill path to the skills array in all three:

    • .claude-plugin/marketplace.json
    • .cursor-plugin/marketplace.json
    • .agents-plugin/marketplace.json

  6. Validate locally.

    bash
    # 1. Lint clean (0 errors)
./scripts/lint-skills.sh skills/<plugin>/<your-skill>

# 2. Tessl reviewScore ≥75 (the CI gate)
tessl skill review --json skills/<plugin>/<your-skill> | jq '.review.reviewScore'

# 3. If below 75 or you want ≥85: run --optimize (requires auth)
tessl skill review --optimize --yes --max-iterations 3 skills/<plugin>/<your-skill>

    If the run fails: read the lint error / Tessl suggestion, fix, re-run. Don't open the PR until both checks pass cleanly. The feedback-loop pattern beats one-shot writing.

Show full SKILL.md (194 more words)Show less

Fixing a low-scoring existing skill

  1. Read the judge's verbatim Suggestions text (non-JSON output):

    bash
    tessl skill review skills/<plugin>/<name>

    The Suggestions: block under each dimension names the exact sentences/sections to cut. Copy the suggestion — don't guess. Then verify the lowest dimension matches your read.

  2. Apply the fix pattern from references/rubric.md:

    • Conciseness 1-2 → cut intros, definitions, multi-line tables that mostly point to refs
    • Actionability 1-2 → replace prose with code blocks and CLI commands
    • Workflow clarity 1-2 → add numbered steps + validation checkpoints
    • Progressive disclosure 1-2 → split into references/*.md

  3. If the skill is intentionally a routing document (like grafana-k6/k6-docs), don't let --optimize inline the bundle back into SKILL.md. Hand-craft a minimal copy-paste "validation loop" inline so SKILL.md is independently actionable, while preserving the bundle.

  4. Re-score five times locally. Don't stop until all five runs hit 100 — see "Score variance" above for why.

Anti-patterns

See references/anti-patterns.md.

References

© grafana, 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 4 other files (references) in skills/grafana-core/skill-authoring of grafana/skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/anatomy.md
  • references/anti-patterns.md
  • references/descriptions.md
  • references/rubric.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 1ccacf2

Compare with similar skills

Skill Authoring next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Skill Authoring compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Skill Authoring this skillgrafana/skills281—~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Mz Release SignoffMaterializeInc/materialize6.4k—~7.2kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Axiom Dashboard Builderopenclaw/clawhub9.5k—~4.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Happy Infra Metrics and Grafanaslopus/happy24k—~2kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Syncmetapawurb/hotpath-rs1.9k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Optimize Slurm TopologyNVlabs/alpasim1.3k—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Skill Authoring

What does Skill Authoring do?

Author, audit, and improve Grafana SKILL.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability…. Skill Authoring is an agent skill from grafana/skills, published by the product's own GitHub organization.md files against Anthropic's published Agent Skills guidance and the four-dimension rubric the grafana/skills CI gate uses (conciseness, actionability, workflow clarity, progressive disclosure).

When should I use Skill Authoring?

Skill Authoring fits situations like: the three-level progressive-disclosure model; the validate-fix-rerun feedback loop; creating a new skill in this repo; reviewing a skill PR.

How do I install Skill Authoring in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add grafana/skills --skill skill-authoring -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/grafana-core/skill-authoring in grafana/skills) into .claude/skills/skill-authoring in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Skill Authoring in Codex?

Run `npx skills add grafana/skills --skill skill-authoring -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/grafana-core/skill-authoring in grafana/skills) into .agents/skills/skill-authoring in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Skill Authoring in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add grafana/skills --skill skill-authoring -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/skill-authoring, .gemini/skills/skill-authoring, .github/skills/skill-authoring and .opencode/skills/skill-authoring in your project.

What does Skill Authoring need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Skill Authoring needs the command-line tools its instructions call (jq).

Does Skill Authoring access the network?

SKILL.md names 3 domains. As links in the text: platform.claude.com, github.com and resources.anthropic.com. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Skill Authoring safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Skill Authoring use?

Skill Authoring is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Skill Authoring use?

About 1.8k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 7.1k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 7.6k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Skill Authoring?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Skill Authoring: Mz Release Signoff (MaterializeInc/materialize, 6.4k stars), Axiom Dashboard Builder (openclaw/clawhub, 9.5k stars), Happy Infra Metrics and Grafana (slopus/happy, 24k stars) and Syncmeta (pawurb/hotpath-rs, 1.9k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Skill Authoring?

grafana (a GitHub organization, an official publisher) maintains it in grafana/skills, which has 281 GitHub stars. The repository holds 51 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 8, 2026.

Source: grafana/skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.