Curation skill builder

Curation Skill Builder

Use this skill when designing and building a new TypeDB-backed curation skill for the Alhazen notebook system. This is a meta-skill that applies domain modeling to create domain-specific skills following the Skillful Alhazen curation pattern.

When to use: "build a curation notebook skill", "create a new Alhazen skill", "design a TypeDB-backed skill", "model a new domain for the notebook", "add a new skill for tracking X in the knowledge graph", "design a skill using the Skillful Alhazen methodology"

Use the official skill-creator plugin instead for all other skill development — when you want to build, evaluate, or improve a Claude Code skill that does NOT use TypeDB or the Alhazen curation notebook methodology.

The Curation Pattern (6 phases)

All domain skills follow: TASK DEFINITION → FORAGING → INGESTION → SENSEMAKING → ANALYSIS → REPORTING

• Task Definition (Phase 0): Define the goal or decision the curation is meant to serve (natural language, stored as a task entity)
• Foraging: Discover sources (URLs, APIs, databases)
• Ingestion: Capture raw content with provenance (script responsibility — no parsing)
• Sensemaking: Claude reads artifacts and creates structured understanding (entities, fragments, notes)
• Analysis: Reason across many notes over time to generate insights
• Reporting: Dashboard views for human decision-making

Quick Start (Design a New Domain)

# Copy the template to get started
cp -r skills/_template skills/<your-domain>
# Then implement SKILL.md, skill.yaml, <name>.py, schema.tql
# Add to skills-registry.yaml and run make build-skills

Quick Start (Design Process Tracking)

# Create a tracking project for a domain
uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py \
    init-domain --name "My Domain" --skill my-skill

# Set the natural-language task the skill performs (Phase 0)
uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py \
    set-task --domain-id dm-domain-XXXX \
    --task "Ingest FDA 510k clearances and query clearance history"

# Snapshot the full skill directory (schema + scripts + prompts + tests)
uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py \
    snapshot-skill --domain-id dm-domain-XXXX \
    --skill-dir local_skills/my-skill/ --repo-dir .

# Record a design decision and its rationale
uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py \
    add-decision --domain-id dm-domain-XXXX --type entity \
    --summary "Use collection as base for domain grouping"

# Export annotated Markdown design changelog
uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py \
    export-design --domain-id dm-domain-XXXX

5-Phase System Design Workflow

Use the structured phase workflow to build a TypeDB record of the full design process for a skill. Each phase captures what the system is for, what data it models, where data comes from, what skills ingest it, and what skills analyze it.

Phase	What it captures	Key command
1 -- Goal	System purpose + evaluation criteria	define-goal, add-evaluation
2 -- Entity Schema	TypeDB types the domain defines	add-entity-schema
3 -- Source Schema	External data sources + artifact types	add-source-schema
4 -- Derivation Skills	Ingestion functions (artifact -> entity)	add-derivation-skill
5 -- Analysis Skills	Query functions (entity -> insight)	add-analysis-skill

Spec notes attach to phase entities via add-phase-spec. Design gaps discovered during implementation are filed as GitHub Issues with gh issue create (see USAGE.md "Improvement Loop"). Export the full structured report with export-design-phases.

Read USAGE.md section "5-Phase System Design Workflow" before using these commands.

Namespace Rules

Every skill with a schema.tql must follow these namespace conventions:

1. Declare a namespace prefix in skill.yaml under schema.namespace (e.g., jobhunt, tech-recon, scilit)
2. Use lowercase hyphenated tokens — no dots, underscores, or camelCase
3. All types must start with the prefix — jobhunt-position, jobhunt-company, etc. Exception: skills that only extend core types use namespace: null
4. No prefix reuse — each namespace prefix belongs to exactly one skill
5. Cross-namespace references require depends_on — if your schema adds a plays clause to a type from another skill, declare that skill in schema.depends_on
6. Core types are always available — domain-thing, collection, note, artifact, fragment, person, etc. need no depends_on

Validate a skill's namespace compliance:

uv run python .claude/skills/curation-skill-builder/skill_builder.py validate-namespace \
  --skill-dir local_skills/<skill-name> 2>/dev/null

Audit all namespaces in the running database:

make db-audit

Command Output Pattern

uv run emits a VIRTUAL_ENV warning to stderr. Always use 2>/dev/null when piping output to a JSON parser — never 2>&1, which merges the warning into stdout and breaks JSON parsing.

Before executing commands, read USAGE.md in this directory for the complete phase breakdown, design tracking workflow, schema templates, and documentation checklist.