Authoring Skills

This guide covers creating and structuring skills with skillc.

Initialize a project

Before creating skills, initialize skillc in your project:

skc init

This creates .skillc/skills/ where your skill sources live.

Create a new skill

skc init my-skill

This creates .skillc/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md with minimal frontmatter:

---
name: my-skill
description: A brief description of what this skill does
---

# my-skill

Your skill content here...

Skill structure

A skill is a directory containing at least SKILL.md. You can add additional markdown files for organization:

.skillc/skills/my-skill/
├── SKILL.md              # Required: main entry point
├── examples/
│   └── usage.md          # Optional: examples
├── reference/
│   └── api.md            # Optional: reference docs
└── troubleshooting.md    # Optional: troubleshooting

Frontmatter

Every SKILL.md must have YAML frontmatter with at least:

---
name: my-skill
description: A brief description
---

Optional fields:

---
name: my-skill
description: A brief description
version: 1.0.0
author: Your Name
tags: [rust, development]
---

Writing effective content

Keep it scannable

Agents read skills to find relevant information quickly. Use:

Clear headings (H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections)
Bullet points for lists
Code blocks for examples

Use progressive disclosure

Put the most important information first. Detailed reference material can go in separate files.

Include activation triggers

Tell agents when to use this skill:

## When to use this skill

Use this skill when:

- Working with Rust projects
- Debugging lifetime errors
- Optimizing Rust performance

Global skills

To create a skill that’s available across all projects:

skc init my-skill --global

This creates the skill in ~/.skillc/skills/my-skill/.

Next steps

Validate your skill with skc lint
Test locally with gateway commands
Publish when ready

Keyboard shortcuts

skillc