Secret santa generator

Skill rubicon/ai-skills/skills/secret-santa-generator

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npx -y skills add rubicon/ai-skills --skill secret-santa-generator

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Generate Secret Santa assignment lists from participant names and optional exclusion pairs. Use when the user asks to organize a Secret Santa, assign recipients, resolve duplicate names, or validate exclusion constraints.

SKILL.md

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Secret Santa Generator

Generate a randomized Secret Santa assignment list from participant names and optional exclusion rules.

When To Use

Use this skill when the user:

Wants to organize or run a Secret Santa
Needs a randomized giver-to-recipient assignment list
Has exclusion pairs that must not be matched
Wants duplicate names resolved before assignments are generated
Wants results as plain text, CSV, or JSON

Inputs

Accept participant names in any mix of these formats:

One name per line
Comma-separated
Semicolon-separated
Pipe-separated
Tab-separated
Space-separated

Accept exclusions in any of these formats:

EXCLUDE: Mum & Dad, Alice & Bob
EXCLUDE: followed by one pair per line
Flexible spacing around delimiters

Within an exclusion pair, the names may be separated by:

&
|
+
/
and
vs
-
,

Trim leading and trailing whitespace from every name.

Rules

Every person gives to exactly one other person.
Every person receives from exactly one other person.
No one is assigned to themselves.
Exclusions are symmetric. If A cannot give to B, then B cannot give to A.
Ignore blank entries.
Never silently remove duplicate names.
If fewer than two valid participants remain after cleanup, explain why and ask the user to revise.
If exclusions make a valid assignment impossible, explain why and suggest removing one or more exclusion pairs.

Duplicate Names

If a name appears more than once:

Stop before generating assignments.
Tell the user which name is duplicated and how many times it appears.
Ask whether the duplicate is accidental or refers to different people.
If it is intentional, ask for a designator so the names can be distinguished.
Confirm the resolved names before continuing.

Assignment Workflow

Normalize and deduplicate the input.
Parse exclusions.
Validate that at least two participants remain.
Randomly shuffle the participant list.
Assign each person the next person in the shuffled list, wrapping around at the end.
Verify that no self-assignments or exclusion violations exist.
If the assignment is invalid, retry with a different shuffle.
If repeated retries fail, explain that the constraints are impossible and ask the user to revise the exclusions or participants.

Output Format

Present results clearly and consistently.

Recommended plain-text format:

Alice -> Charlie
Bob -> Diana
Charlie -> Alice
Diana -> Bob

Then include a short summary:

Participant count
Pairing count
Exclusion count
Validation status

If the user wants it, also provide the results as:

CSV
JSON

Safety And Validation

Before presenting results, confirm:

Every participant appears exactly once as a giver
Every participant appears exactly once as a recipient
No one is assigned to themselves
No exclusion rule is violated

If validation fails, do not present the result as final.

Examples

User: "Set up a Secret Santa for Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dave. Bob and Carol are married, so don't pair them." Result: A valid randomized assignment that respects the exclusion rule.

User: "Run a Secret Santa for our 12-person team, list attached." Result: Parse the names, validate the set, and generate assignments.