Sharing Skills

This skill explains how skills are structured and how to package one for sharing. It is a companion to skill authoring: where skill-creator helps you write a skill, this covers laying it out correctly and bundling it to hand off.

Where skills live

Each skill is a folder under the skills/ directory. The folder name is the skill's identity and must match the name field in its frontmatter (lowercase). At minimum a skill folder contains a SKILL.md; it may also include supporting files (scripts, reference docs, assets) the skill refers to.

skills/
  my-skill/
    SKILL.md
    reference.md        # optional supporting docs
    scripts/run.sh      # optional helper scripts

SKILL.md format

A SKILL.md is a Markdown file with a YAML frontmatter block followed by the skill body.

---
name: my-skill          # must equal the folder name, lowercase
description: Use when ...  # the "use when" trigger guidance, product-free
# optional eligibility keys (omit any that don't apply):
os: [darwin, linux]       # OS restriction
requires-bins: [foo]      # binaries that MUST be present
requires-any-bins: [a, b] # at least one of these binaries
requires-env: [MY_TOKEN]  # required environment variables
---

Body guidelines:

• Open with a short overview of what the skill does and when to reach for it.
• Keep instructions truthful: only describe actions the runtime can actually perform.
• Reference any supporting files by relative path within the folder.
• Keep it lean — the description and metadata are what get surfaced; the body is read on demand.

Versioning a shared skill

When you intend to share a skill, keep a changelog note and a version in mind so recipients can tell revisions apart. A simple convention is a ## Changelog section at the bottom of SKILL.md or a sibling CHANGELOG.md.

Packaging a folder to share

To share a skill, bundle its entire folder (so supporting files travel with it) and hand it off as an archive.

# from the skills/ directory, archive a single skill folder
tar -czf my-skill.tar.gz my-skill/

The recipient unpacks the archive into their own skills/ directory:

tar -xzf my-skill.tar.gz -C ./skills/

After unpacking, confirm the folder name still matches the name in frontmatter and that any requires-* eligibility keys are accurate for the new environment.

Checklist before sharing

• name equals the folder name (lowercase).
• description is present and free of product names.
• Eligibility keys (os / requires-bins / requires-any-bins / requires-env) reflect real requirements — omit them when there are none.
• Supporting files are inside the folder and referenced by relative path.
• The body never instructs calling a tool the runtime does not have.