Update Skill

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Authoring new skills
• Revising the structure
• Guidance for existing ones

Example prompts

• “/update-skill”

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Title and brief summary – Clear title and a concise overview of the skill's purpose and primary use cases. Link to sections, reference…
2. 2Overview - Context about the skill's purpose (optional but common), extends the summary with more details and context
3. 3Main content - Steps, usage instructions, or workflow guidance
4. 4Best Practices - Guidelines and recommendations (optional)
5. 5Examples / Reference PRs - Links to real examples (optional)

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 69b4753. 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 markdown and bash).

  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):

  • github.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

Update Skill loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3.2k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 52 tokens; SKILL.md has 525 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~52

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

~1.2k

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

~3.2k

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 warpdotdev/common-skills at commit 69b4753, republished under its MIT licence (© warpdotdev). 525 words, ~1,228 tokens.

name

update-skill

description

Create or update skills by generating, editing, or refining SKILL.md files in this repository. Use when authoring new skills or revising the structure, frontmatter, or guidance for existing ones.

---
name: pdf-processing
description: Extract text and tables from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents.
---

# PDF Processing

## When to use this skill
Use this skill when the user needs to work with PDF files...

## How to extract text
1. Use pdfplumber for text extraction...

## How to fill forms
...

skills-ref validate ./my-skill

© warpdotdev, 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 1 other file (references) in .agents/skills/update-skill of warpdotdev/common-skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/best-practices.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 69b4753