Write skill

Skill tale-project/tale/builtin-configs/skills/write-skill

Use this skill whenever you create or update a skill in a Tale organization — a SKILL.md bundle that teaches agents a capability or procedure. Triggers include: "write/add a skill", "teach the agent to …", "package this procedure so agents can reuse it", or an agent that keeps needing the same instructions. Never author a SKILL.md without it — and never create one before listing the existing skills and ruling out reuse. To make an agent load a skill, bind it via skillBindings (write-agent); to ship skills inside an installable bundle, use write-automation.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add tale-project/tale --skill write-skill

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

17 stars17 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.

SKILL.md

3.5 KB, 725 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

write-skill

A skill is a bundle directory skills/<slug>/ with a SKILL.md at its root plus optional assets (scripts, reference files). Agents see a skill only when their skillBindings list its slug (max 10 per agent — there is no implicit "all skills"); the description alone decides whether the agent loads it, so the description carries the invocation.

Reuse before you create — tick every box

List the existing skills of the org first.
One already covers the capability → bind it to the agent; create nothing.
One covers it partially → extend that bundle instead of writing a near-twin.
Nothing fits → only then author a new bundle.

Frontmatter — the validated contract

SKILL.md must open with a strict-YAML frontmatter block fenced by --- lines (≤16 KB):

name (required) — must equal the bundle directory slug: kebab-case ^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$, ≤64 chars. anthropic and claude are reserved and rejected.
description (required, 1–1024 chars) — the invocation. Open with Use this skill whenever <situation> …, enumerate the concrete triggers, close with the boundary (which sibling skill owns the adjacent case).
Optional: license (≤120 chars); recommended-packages with python/node spec lists (≤20 each, ≤120 chars per spec — advisory only, never auto-installed); disable-model-invocation: true (the skill is never auto-loaded; explicit recall only); icon (an Iconify set:name like lucide:book-open, shown on the catalog card); labels (≤8 literal display chips like ["Documents"], shown on the catalog card — the same vocabulary automation manifests use); metadata (free-form record). Unknown keys are preserved, not rejected.

---
name: triage-inbox
description: Use this skill whenever you triage incoming support email — classify, route, and draft a reply. Never answer a support thread without it.
---

# triage-inbox

1. Classify the message: bug / billing / question.
2. ...

Body — keep it a procedure

Imperative steps the agent runs the same way every time; ≤ ~150 lines. Push depth into companion files inside the bundle and link them with a one-line "read when".
Cut lines the model already obeys by default ("be careful", "write clear names") — every sentence must change behaviour.
Scripts live in the bundle (e.g. scripts/convert.py) and are invoked bundle-relative.

Limits and validation

Bundle caps: ≤2 MiB per file, ≤20 MiB decompressed total, ≤200 entries.
Malformed frontmatter (missing fence, invalid YAML, failed field) is rejected at upload/save as invalid_frontmatter with the offending line — nothing broken ever lands in the org.

Siblings: write-agent (binding skills to agents), write-workflow (processes, not capabilities), write-automation (shipping a bundle of entities as one installable automation).