The method
Design, build, grade, ship
A skill is not done when it looks finished. It is done when it clears each stage of a defined lifecycle and passes a single publish gate.
The six-stage build lifecycle
Every skill takes the same path
- 01
Architect
skill-design-plan-architect
Turn a one-paragraph brief into a typed design plan: an anatomy claim, a file list, four worker parcels, and the sister skills to bridge to.
- 02
Orchestrator dispatch
skill-build-pipeline
Fan out four worker subagents in parallel — SKILL.md body, references, scripts, and evals — then integrate their output on disk.
- 03
Dogfood
skill-ralph-loop-advisor
Score the skill's loop, tools, memory, and context profile. Optional: purely mechanical skills with deterministic output can skip it.
- 04
Tier-fix sweep
skill-dogfood-triage
Classify each finding as Tier 1 mechanical, Tier 2 calibration, or Tier 3 architectural, then fix cheapest-first.
- 05
Bridge wiring
skill-bridge-patcher
Wire the new skill into its sister skills' hand-offs, using one of four canonical bridge patterns.
- 06
Preflight and grade
skill-preflight-check · skill-quality-grader
Validate the skill for upload and grade its content against the quality rubric. This is the terminal gate.
The rules
Each check has a number
Findings cite a specific rule, not a preference. A sample of the families the toolkit enforces:
| Family | Checks | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| P001–P017 | Claude.ai upload parser compliance plus Anthropic's Skills best-practices spec | skill-preflight-check |
| Q001–Q010 | Content-quality rubric | skill-quality-grader |
| DD001–DD006 | Stale documentation references | skill-doc-drift-sweep |
| CE001–CE007 | Context-engineering on workflows | skill-context-audit |
| LS001–LS010 | LLM/agent security posture | llm-security-best-practices |
| MS001–MS020 | MCP server project correctness | skill-mcp-server-builder |
| SA001–SA008 | Sub-agent definition hygiene | skill-subagent-audit |
| V001–V010 | Hazeley voice guide | linkedin-content-strategy |
Composition
13 workflows chain the tools end-to-end
audit-and-bridge
W4 - library health -> wiring: ecosystem-audit a collection, bridge each overlap/gap edge, then re-audit to confirm.
Audit the skill collection in skills/ for overlap, then propose bridges that let each skill delegate to the right downstream skill.
author-prompt
W12 - author a prompt from an intent when none exists yet: interview the brief into a prompt-spec, render it through the profile for its kind, lint it against PD001-PD014, read it adversarially against its own spec, and stop at the command that would measure it.
best-practices-pass
W9 - audit a repo for software-development best-practice readiness, triage the gaps, then advise a ranked adoption plan (advisory, no verdict).
Audit the monorepo in /repos/backend-services for engineering practices and prioritize adoption by implementation cost.
build-hermes-agent
Build a Hermes agent end-to-end: scaffold a Track-A or Track-B project, validate HM001-HM008, then fix to clean. Counterpart of the build-hermes-agent.js workflow (skill-hermes-agent).
Scaffold a Track A Hermes agent at /projects/new-agent. Validate the project structure to ensure all dependencies resolve cleanly.
build-skill
W1 - author a new skill end-to-end: architect -> 4-worker fan-out -> dogfood-triage -> bridge -> ship gate. Formalizes skill-build-pipeline.
Create the skill from .claude/plans/data-sync.md into skills/connectors/data-sync/. Implement all stages, error recovery, and retry logic outlined in the locked design document.
extend-rule
W7 - add or tighten a numbered rule (P/M/A/Q/R) across the five touchpoints, then audit completeness.
Rule-303 in api-consistency-validator is too loose on trailing slashes. Add stricter logic and propagate through linter, formatter, CI, git hooks, and the web interface.
friction-postmortem
W6 - tune a skill after real use: quantify trailing friction from a transcript, classify it, fold a bounded patch into the right artifact, re-gate.
Can you trace through session.jsonl to identify why skills/api-refactor didn't meet expectations, then propose one specific, bounded fix?
harvest-repo
W10 - first-contact harvest evaluation of an external repo: Gate 0 recon -> dedup sweep -> analysis record + registry rows -> HR audit. Formalizes skill-repo-harvest.
Evaluate https://github.com/torvalds/linux and create a durable record of the practices most worth emulating.
prospect-to-design
W5 - demand -> design: mine session transcripts for recurring workflows, rank by reach, design the top candidate, then build it.
My past sessions are in ~/.claude/transcripts. Find recurring workflows, score by time-saving potential, design the top three as skills.
release-new-skill
W8 - toolkit propagation gate: audit the cross-cutting registries for a new skill and emit a release checklist.
New skill: doc-coauthoring at ~/.claude/skills/doc-coauthoring/. Is it registered in all required registries? Give me the release checklist.
select-skill-prompts
W11 - the best published example prompt for each skill, by measurement: scaffold a suite from a skills tree, review it, then generate -> rubric -> routing -> pairwise as client-executed contracts, and gate the result.
Pick the example prompt for every skill in skills/ by testing, not vibes. Generate options, check which reach the intended skill, keep the best. I want evidence behind each published line.
ship-skill
W2 - pre-publish GO/NO-GO gate over one skill: preflight -> grade -> ecosystem-audit, fastest-first with early-exit, then a verdict.
Run the GO/NO-GO check on skills/skill-mcp-server-builder before I upload it. Tell me pass or fail, nothing else.
triage-and-fix
W3 - finding -> tiered fix sweep until clean: run a gate, classify findings into Tier 1/2/3, fix cheapest-first, re-gate.
Run the gate against skills/skill-bridge-patcher, sort findings cheapest-first, fix what's fixable, then re-gate until it's clean.
Each prompt above was selected out of 75–175 candidates by a scored funnel. The full set, including the single-verifier asks, is on Prompts.
The gate
One verdict, in the output
Hand-rolling this discipline means re-deciding what “good” means on every review. The gate settles it once: a skill is GO or NO-GO, and the reason is a named rule that fires the same way for every author, every time.