Skill builder

Skill jqaisystems/jqai-ai-skills/skills/skill-builder

MIT reusable AI skills for Codex and Claude Code: safe publishing, research briefs, case studies, web scraping, copy cleanup, and release automation.

Install

npx -y skills add jqaisystems/jqai-ai-skills --skill skill-builder

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

One thing to look at

2 stars2 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

Author a new Claude Code skill the right way, from choosing the storage tier (project, shared library, or user-global) to scaffolding the SKILL.md, linking it across workspaces, and registering it for agents that do not auto-load skills, like Codex. Use when the user says "create a skill", "turn this workflow into a skill", "make this repeatable", or "new skill for".

SKILL.md

4.1 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Skill Builder

The difference between a skill that fires reliably and one that never triggers is craft: a description written as a trigger matcher, absolute paths, explicit guardrails. This skill builds skills that work, and puts them where they belong.

Step 1: Mine the workflow

The best skills come from a workflow that just happened. If the user is converting something they did this session, extract from THIS conversation: the exact steps, the paths touched, the mistakes made and corrected. Those corrections become the new skill's Rules section.

Pin down:

Name: kebab-case, short, specific (follow-up-radar, not helper-tool). Check for collisions against every skill already installed in any tier.
Triggers: the literal phrases the user would say. These go in the description, quoted.
Job: one job. If the skill needs an "and also" clause, that is two skills.

Step 2: Choose the storage tier

The skill...	Tier	Location
Only makes sense in this project or workspace	Project	`<project>/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md`
Useful across several workspaces	Shared library	One real folder in a central location, linked into each workspace's `.claude/skills/`
Generic personal utility, any folder	User-global	`~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md`

For the shared library tier, create the real folder once and link it in per workspace:

Windows (no admin rights needed): New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "<workspace>\.claude\skills\<name>" -Target "<library>\<name>"
macOS/Linux: ln -s <library>/<name> <workspace>/.claude/skills/<name>

An edit to the library folder then propagates to every workspace that links it.

Step 3: Scaffold the SKILL.md

Always a folder with a SKILL.md, never a loose file. Frontmatter has exactly two keys:

---
name: <name>
description: <What it does in one sentence. Then the trigger phrases, quoted, so the skill actually fires.>
---

# <Title>

One line: the outcome this skill produces.

## Step 1: ...
## Step 2: ...

## Rules
- The explicit never-do list: what it must not overwrite, delete, send, or invent.

## Output
What the user receives: files, report, chat summary.

Craft rules that matter:

The description is the trigger matcher. Vague descriptions produce skills that never activate.
Absolute paths for anything outside the current project, so the skill works regardless of where it runs.
Personal data (emails, prices, client names) goes in an ask-once config file the skill loads at Step 0, never hardcoded, especially if the skill might ever be shared.
Guardrails are explicit: "never overwrite", "report before acting", "drafts only, never send".

Step 4: Register for agents that do not auto-load

Claude Code discovers .claude/skills/ automatically. Codex and similar agents do not. If the workspace serves both, register the skill in the workspace's AGENTS.md as required reading: bold name, path, one line saying when it applies. Keep a short pointer in CLAUDE.md for load order. The agents-md-writer skill generates this contract if the workspace lacks one.

Step 5: Verify

Confirm the skill appears in the available-skills list (fresh sessions pick it up on start).
Dry-run it once on throwaway input and delete the test output.
Review it with the skill-reviewer skill if it will be shared or installed elsewhere.

Rules

Never edit installed third-party skill bundles. New work goes in the three tiers above.
Update rather than duplicate: if an existing skill has overlapping triggers, extend it.
No em dashes in the skill file or its outputs.

Output

A working skill folder in the right tier, linked and registered where needed, verified with a dry run.