Why does the description need a specific formula?

The [WHAT] + [WHEN] + [TRIGGERS] formula ensures the agent's system prompt knows exactly what the skill does and precisely which keywords should trigger its activation.

What is progressive disclosure in the context of skills?

It is a strategy to keep the main SKILL.md concise (under 500 lines) by moving technical details, API references, and assets into subdirectories to save token costs.

Can I restrict which tools a skill is allowed to use?

Yes, the skill specification supports an 'allowed-tools' field in the frontmatter to limit capabilities to specific tools like Read, Grep, or restricted Bash commands.

How do I start a new skill with this tool?

You can invoke the skill with 'new skill' or run the initialization script provided in the skill-development directory using an archetype like 'simple' or 'api-wrapper'.

What is the Agent Skills specification?

It is an open format supported by Claude Code, Cursor, and other agent products designed to provide domain-specific instructions, patterns, and tools to AI agents.

Skills Development Kit

Name: Skills Development Kit
Author: outfitter-dev

byoutfitter-dev

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Developer Tools

Streamlines the creation, validation, and management of specialized agent skills following the open Agent Skills specification.

About

The Skills Development skill provides a comprehensive framework for building domain-specific capabilities for AI agents like Claude Code and Cursor. It guides developers through a structured lifecycle—from initial discovery and archetype selection to automated initialization and rigorous validation—ensuring that every new skill follows the open Agent Skills format. By standardizing the SKILL.md structure and offering built-in archetypes for APIs, document processing, and dev workflows, it helps engineers create high-quality, discoverable, and token-efficient agent enhancements that integrate seamlessly with modern AI development tools.

Key Features

16 GitHub stars
Automated skill initialization using predefined archetypes like API-wrapper and Dev-workflow.
Integrated CLI tools for verifying file structure and identifying broken markdown references.
Support for user-invocable slash commands and experimental tool restriction configurations.
Standardized workflow for discovery, customization, and progressive disclosure of instructions.
Built-in validation engine to verify YAML frontmatter, naming conventions, and description quality.

Use Cases

Scaffolding a new custom skill for project-specific automation or internal API integration.
Refactoring existing agent instructions into the standardized SKILL.md format for better performance.
Validating community-contributed skills to ensure they meet technical and architectural requirements.

About

Key Features

16 GitHub stars
Automated skill initialization using predefined archetypes like API-wrapper and Dev-workflow.
Integrated CLI tools for verifying file structure and identifying broken markdown references.
Support for user-invocable slash commands and experimental tool restriction configurations.
Standardized workflow for discovery, customization, and progressive disclosure of instructions.
Built-in validation engine to verify YAML frontmatter, naming conventions, and description quality.

Use Cases

Scaffolding a new custom skill for project-specific automation or internal API integration.
Refactoring existing agent instructions into the standardized SKILL.md format for better performance.
Validating community-contributed skills to ensure they meet technical and architectural requirements.