Whats a Skill

What's a Skill?

A skill is a self-contained, versioned unit of procedural memory for AI agents.

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Anatomy of a Skill

Each skill lives in skills/<category>/<name>/ and contains:

skills/<category>/<name>/
  SKILL.md              # Canonical definition (Hermes format)
  references/           # Supporting docs, API specs, examples
  scripts/              # Helper scripts, validators, generators
  templates/            # Starter kits for new skills

SKILL.md Structure

Every SKILL.md has YAML frontmatter:

---
name: skill-name
description: When to use this skill (imperative)
version: 1.0.0
author: pedroiff0
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos]
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [tag1, tag2, tag3]
---

Followed by markdown body with:

• Trigger — when to use the skill
• Steps — numbered instructions with exact commands
• Pitfalls — known issues and workarounds
• Verification — how to confirm it worked

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Hard Rules

1. One canonical SKILL.md per skill (Hermes format)
2. No secrets — tokens, keys, passwords never in body or scripts
3. API purity — no leaked credentials, no proprietary code
4. Multi-tool compatible — must work across runtimes with thin adaptors
5. Idempotent scripts — safe to run more than once
6. Verifiable — ship a check, or state the blocker explicitly
7. KISS/DRY — concise instructions, concrete examples, no noise

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Multi-Tool Compatibility

Every skill is designed to work across runtimes. See Multi-Tool Compatibility.

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Templates

New skills should follow the starter kits in templates/:

• templates/skill-template/ — canonical skill template
• templates/agent-template/ — agent template
• templates/plugin-template/ — plugin template