Skill authoring

Skill Deadlymind/nanolama/skills/skill-authoring

A portable Claude Code skills library (plugin) for a Django 5.2 + Next.js 16 house stack: 30 model-agnostic, tenant-isolation-and-security-first skills.

Install

npx -y skills add Deadlymind/nanolama --skill skill-authoring

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

2 things to look at

21 days oldThe repository was created 21 days ago. New is not bad, but a brand new repository carrying a familiar-sounding name is the shape a typosquat arrives in, and there has been no time for anyone else to find a problem with it.
1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Authors or fixes a skill in the nanolama library — the SKILL.md frontmatter contract (directory equals name, [a-z0-9-], no reserved words), a third-person description carrying "Use when" and a "Not for" boundary with no colon-space, the five required body sections, one inline example, and backticked See-also names from the roster. Use when creating a new skill, copying template/, editing an existing SKILL.md, wiring scripts/catalog.yaml, or fixing a validate_skills.py failure. Not for authoring the domain content of a specific skill (that lives in the skill itself) or reviewing a code diff (see code-review).

SKILL.md

4.4 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Skill authoring (the nanolama SKILL.md contract)

When to use

Adding a new skill to this library, or fixing one that fails python scripts/validate_skills.py. The validator is the source of truth — every rule below is enforced, so a green run is the definition of done here.

Pattern

A skill teaches ONE reusable pattern that is true for ANY project on the house stack, plus an "adapt to your repo" note — never one codebase's specifics. It is a SKILL.md with exactly two frontmatter fields (name, description), the five house sections, and cross-refs that resolve to real skills. The catalog must stay in 1:1 sync with skills/.

The frontmatter contract

name — MUST equal the directory name; only [a-z0-9-]; <=64 chars; MUST NOT contain the reserved words claude or anthropic.
description — third person; MUST contain the literal phrase Use when; <=1024 chars; NO angle brackets. CRITICAL — no colon-followed-by-space ": " anywhere (YAML misparses it); use an em dash — or a period. Also avoid you can/you should/I will (the validator flags first/second person). Front-load what-it-does + stack keywords + verbatim trigger phrases; end with a Not for ... clause handing adjacent scope to a named sibling (disambiguate shared keywords — ViewSet vs consumer vs task).

# skills/<name>/SKILL.md — copy this shape, then rewrite every value.
---
name: my-skill                 # == directory name, [a-z0-9-], no claude/anthropic
description: Does X on Django/DRF — front-loaded keywords. Use when a user
  says "trigger phrase" or edits foo.py. Not for bar (see sibling-skill).
---                            # note: no ": " colon-space, third person, <=1024 chars

The body contract

These five headings MUST appear verbatim (extra middle sections like ## Steps / idioms or ## Variants are welcome): ## When to use, ## Pattern, ## Adapt to your repo, ## Gotchas, and the See-also section. Include ONE tight, correct, COMMENTED example inline (< ~40 lines, real APIs for the stack versions, never a full app). Keep the whole file scannable and under ~180 lines. In the See-also section, list siblings as backticked names — every backticked token there must resolve to a real skill in the roster, or validation fails.

Workflow

cp -r template/ skills/<name>/ and rename the folder to <name>.
Rewrite skills/<name>/SKILL.md: frontmatter, the five sections, one example.
Add an entry under skills: in scripts/catalog.yaml (name, category, blurb).
Run python scripts/validate_skills.py — fix every reported problem.
Run python scripts/generate_readme.py to re-render the README table from the catalog.

Adapt to your repo

This meta-skill targets THIS repo's real tooling (template/, scripts/catalog.yaml, scripts/validate_skills.py, scripts/generate_readme.py). A fork that renames those paths or changes REQUIRED_SECTIONS/ALLOWED_FIELDS in the validator must update this skill to match — the validator, not this prose, is authoritative.

Gotchas

A colon-space ": " in the description is the most common failure — YAML reads it as a key/value split. Use — or a period instead.
name must equal the directory name exactly; a mismatch (or a stray claude/anthropic substring) fails validation.
Every skill dir needs a matching catalog entry and vice versa — the validator checks 1:1 sync, so a new folder without a catalog line fails.
Don't add extra frontmatter fields; only name and description belong on a nanolama skill (the validator allows a few more but the house style is exactly two).
Prove the file before claiming done — run the validator and paste its output (see verify).