Readme Best Practices

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Writing a new README
• Rewriting an existing one
• Reviewing README quality for a repository

Example prompts

• “/readme-best-practices”

Requirements

• Node.js

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Draft the one-liner — Write a bold, specific sentence stating what the project does and why someone should care. Avoid "A tool that..."…
2. 2Write a working code example first — Put a copy-pasteable example in the first 5-10 lines of content, before installation instructions…
3. 3Add badges — Build status, version, license, and coverage badges directly under the title, if the project has CI/publishing set up.
4. 4Write Quick Start — Zero-to-running in under 30 seconds, with no placeholder values the reader has to mentally substitute.
5. 5Fill in supporting sections — Features, Usage, Configuration, Contributing, License — using the structure below, only including sections…
6. 6Verify every asset and link — Confirm referenced images (screenshots, demo.gif) exist on disk and that internal links resolve before…
7. 7Read it cold — Reread the first screen as if seeing the project for the first time; cut anything that doesn't help a decision to keep…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 7682ca7. 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:

  • npm

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

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use npm, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

  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

Readme Best Practices loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 82 tokens; SKILL.md has 835 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~82

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

~1.7k

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 Mindrally/skills at commit 7682ca7, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© Mindrally). 835 words, ~1,666 tokens.

name

readme-best-practices

description

Structure, tone, and content conventions for writing effective project README files, covering hooks, quick starts, feature presentation, badges, and common documentation sections. Use when writing a new README, rewriting an existing one, or reviewing README quality for a repository, library, or CLI tool.

metadata.maintainer

Mindrally

metadata.source

https://github.com/Mindrally/skills

| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Zero-config | Works out of the box with sensible defaults |
| Streaming | Handles gigabyte-scale files without loading them into memory |
| Type-safe | Full TypeScript definitions, no `any` in the public API |

npm install awesome-lib

awesome-lib run --input data.csv --output report.json

import { parse } from "awesome-lib";

const result = parse("data.csv");
console.log(result.summary);

© Mindrally, 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

Just SKILL.md in readme-best-practices of Mindrally/skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 7682ca7