Skill creator

Skill Creator

Turns a repeatable PM task into a proper OS skill — a SKILL.md that drops into skills/ and gets picked up automatically. This is how the OS grows past what shipped: when you find yourself doing the same thing twice, make it a skill.

When to use this

• You keep running the same PM workflow by hand and want Claude to own it.
• You have a framework (yours or a book's) you want encoded as a guided skill.
• A built-in skill is close but you want a specialized variant for your domain.
• You're contributing a skill back to the OS.

Before you start (gather these)

• What the skill does in one sentence, and the trigger — what would someone say to invoke it.
• The framework or process it should apply (steps, not vibes).
• The output it should produce (the artifact). If any are vague, ask 2–3 sharp questions before writing — a skill built on a fuzzy job triggers wrong and produces mush.

Process

1. Name it — short, kebab-case, verb-or-noun that matches how people ask (pricing, retro, journey-map). The folder and the frontmatter name must match exactly.
2. Write the description for triggering — third person, 2–4 sentences, and pack in the literal phrases a user would type ("Use when ... 'do X', 'help me Y'"). This is what makes Claude reach for it at the right moment; spend real effort here.
3. Draft the body using the OS skill template (below). The output template is the centerpiece — make it copy-pasteable and genuinely usable.
4. Add anti-patterns — the 3–5 ways this task is commonly done badly. This is half the value.
5. Battle-test it — run it once on a realistic input, then read the output as a skeptic: could a real PM ship this? Is the template complete? Fix what breaks. (Mirror how the OS skills were verified.)
6. Place it — write to skills/<name>/SKILL.md. It's live next session.

Draft skills (when the self-improvement loop creates one)

When a skill is born from the tune-up (the OS noticed you'd hand-rolled the same job 3×), it's created from your last ~3 real examples — so it captures your format and tone, not a generic template. Mark these provisional by adding status: draft to the frontmatter:

---
name: <kebab-name>
description: <trigger-rich, as below>
status: draft   # loop-generated; fires normally but provisional until it proves out
---

A draft skill triggers and runs exactly like any other — the flag is just a promise that the OS will keep an eye on it. It graduates (drop the status: draft line) after it's been used 3 times without a correction (per memory/activity-log.md). If a draft keeps drawing the same correction, tune it instead of graduating. User-authored skills don't need this flag — they're permanent from the start.

Output template (the skill scaffold)

---
name: <kebab-name — matches the folder exactly>
description: <2-4 sentences, third person, trigger-rich. What it does, then "Use when ..." with literal phrases. Under ~70 words.>
---

# <Title>

<1-2 sentence intro grounding it in its framework.>

## When to use this
- 4-5 concrete situations

## Before you start (gather these)
- the inputs needed; instruct to ASK if 2+ are missing, or proceed + state assumptions if provided

## Process
- numbered, opinionated steps that apply the framework

## Output template
- a complete, copy-pasteable markdown artifact with [bracketed] placeholders

## Avoid (anti-patterns)
- 3-5 concrete failure modes specific to this skill

## Tips
- 3-4 sharp pro tips

Avoid (anti-patterns)

• A vague description — if it doesn't contain the words a user would actually say, the skill never triggers.
• A skill that's really a prompt — if there's no framework, no process, and no reusable output template, it's a one-off, not a skill.
• Skipping the battle-test — shipping it unread is how broken templates and wrong frameworks sneak in. Our whole edge is "verified."
• Overlap creep — if it's 80% an existing skill, extend that one or make a clearly-scoped variant; don't fork a near-duplicate.
• Wall-of-text body — keep it skimmable; the template does the heavy lifting, not prose.

Tips

• Steal the structure of the closest existing skill in skills/ — consistency makes the whole OS feel like one thing.
• Write the output template first; the process is just "how to fill it in well."
• Name anti-patterns from real scars — the failure modes you've personally hit.
• If it's broadly useful, contribute it back so every TPC subscriber gets it.