@rosetears/aili-pi 0.1.0

package/skills/write-skills/GLOSSARY.md

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+# Glossary — Predictable Agent Skills
+
+[KNOWN|EXTERNAL] The definitions under Invocation, Information Hierarchy, Steering, and Pruning are selective close adaptations of Matt Pocock's `writing-great-skills` and `GLOSSARY.md` at commit `391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87`, licensed under MIT. Source: `references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/NOTICE.md` and the pinned files beneath that directory.
+
+[FRAME] Terms under AILI Boundaries are local additions. This file is the canonical runtime vocabulary for `write-skills`; the complete pinned upstream glossary is provenance/reference data only.
+
+## Root Virtue
+
+### Predictability
+
+[FRAME] The degree to which a Skill makes the agent follow the same process on comparable runs, even when the output should vary. Invocation, hierarchy, steering, pruning, and AILI boundaries all serve this root virtue.
+
+## Invocation
+
+### Description
+
+[FRAME] The model-facing trigger held in context. It must identify the capability and each genuine invocation branch while spending no words on taglines, duplicated synonyms, or body summaries.
+
+### Branch
+
+[FRAME] A distinct way a Skill is invoked that changes the actions, inputs, output, or completion criterion. Synonyms for one task are not separate branches.
+
+### Context Pointer
+
+[FRAME] Text already in context that names out-of-context material and states when to load it. The pointer's wording determines whether progressive disclosure is reliable.
+
+### Context Load
+
+[FRAME] The tokens and attention permanently or conditionally spent to make Skill material available. Splitting is not free: another model-visible description or weak pointer can cost more predictability than it saves.
+
+### Leading Word
+
+[FRAME] A compact, pretrained concept that anchors invocation or execution behavior, such as Predictability. It earns repetition only when it changes what the model reaches for; a weak slogan is a No-op.
+
+## Information Hierarchy
+
+### Information Hierarchy
+
+[FRAME] The ordering of Skill material by immediacy: common steps and hard boundaries in `SKILL.md`, conditional reference behind a Context Pointer, and deterministic or static resources in scripts/assets only when the workflow needs them.
+
+### Progressive Disclosure
+
+[FRAME] Moving conditional reference down the Information Hierarchy so the common path remains legible. Inline what every branch needs; disclose what only some branches need; sharpen an unreliable pointer before pulling material back inline.
+
+### Co-location
+
+[FRAME] Keeping a concept's definition, rules, and caveats together at the same hierarchy rung. Co-location prevents the agent from seeing a rule without the boundary that makes it safe.
+
+### Sprawl
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* A Skill is too long even when its lines are live and unique, thinning attention across the common path. Cure it by disclosing conditional reference or separating a real branch/owner—not by arbitrary file limits.
+
+## Steering
+
+### Completion Criterion
+
+[FRAME] The observable condition that tells the agent a step or branch is complete. Clarity resists Premature Completion; sufficient demand drives the Legwork needed to support the claim.
+
+### Legwork
+
+[FRAME] The source reading, repository inspection, editing, and evidence gathering performed inside a step. It is demanded by the Completion Criterion rather than expanded into performative process steps.
+
+### Premature Completion
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* The agent leaves a step before its criterion is met because attention shifts to later work. Sharpen the criterion first; split the sequence only when the boundary is real and rushing is observed.
+
+### Negation
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* A prohibition makes the unwanted behavior more salient. State the positive target first; keep a prohibition only for a hard guardrail and pair it with the required alternative.
+
+## Pruning
+
+### Single Source of Truth
+
+[FRAME] The state where one authoritative location owns each behavior or definition. Other locations point to it or remain explicitly inert provenance.
+
+### Duplication
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* The same meaning has more than one active authority, increasing context cost and allowing edits to drift. Collapse it into one Single Source of Truth.
+
+### Relevance
+
+[FRAME] Whether a line still changes or constrains the Skill's active job. A line can be relevant yet still be a No-op; a once-useful line can become Sediment.
+
+### Sediment
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* Stale layers remain because adding feels safer than deleting. Re-check old branches, examples, and caveats against current ownership and remove those no longer relevant.
+
+### No-op
+
+[FRAME] *Failure mode.* An instruction consumes context but does not change model behavior relative to the default. Delete it rather than polishing it; if a Leading Word is too weak to matter, replace or remove it.
+
+## AILI Boundaries — Local Additions
+
+### Routing Boundary
+
+[FRAME] The positive triggers, near misses, and handoff conditions that distinguish one capability from adjacent owners. A boundary is testable only when realistic prompts can fall on both sides.
+
+### Canonical Owner
+
+[FRAME] The one active repository source allowed to define a behavior, schema, artifact, or lifecycle decision. Adapters may point to the owner but do not restate its authority.
+
+### Provenance Closure
+
+[FRAME] The complete record required when external material is copied or closely adapted: source repository, immutable version, license, copyright, adaptation scope, destination, and integrity evidence where applicable.
+
+### Ownership Handoff
+
+[FRAME] A bounded return to ROSE when a task reaches another capability, material decision, permission, or operation gate. It names the need and evidence without invoking the next process skill or implying approval.
+
+### Claim-Matched Verification
+
+[FRAME] The smallest fresh evidence that supports the exact completion claim. It does not grow into a universal suite merely because a Skill or lifecycle phase exists.

package/skills/write-skills/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: write-skills
+description: Create, revise, or evaluate repository Agent Skills when the user asks to write a SKILL.md, improve triggers or information hierarchy, restructure references/scripts/assets, or diagnose skill predictability; do not use for product code, AGENTS.md initialization, general prompt editing, or automatic repository-wide cleanup.
+---
+
+# Write Skills
+
+[FRAME] A skill exists to make an agent's process more predictable, not to force identical output. **Predictability** is the root virtue; every instruction, pointer, and completion criterion must earn its context cost.
+
+## Invocation
+
+[FRAME] This is a model-invoked repository skill because ROSE must discover Agent Skill authoring intent from natural language. Do not copy upstream-only invocation metadata or create a second public route.
+
+Choose exactly one branch:
+
+| Branch | Use when | Completion criterion |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Create** | A reusable Agent Skill does not yet have a canonical owner. | One approved identity, routing boundary, artifact layout, and verification path are explicit before writing. |
+| **Revise** | An existing Skill needs a bounded trigger, workflow, resource, provenance, or maintainability change. | The accepted behavior changes without unrequested adjacent cleanup or duplicate authority. |
+| **Evaluate** | The user asks whether a Skill is predictable, focused, well structured, or likely to over-trigger. | Every reported finding names current evidence, the affected term or boundary, and a concrete disposition; no edit occurs without edit intent and applicable approval. |
+
+Near misses remain with their narrower owner:
+
+- product implementation, bug fixing, or ordinary code review;
+- project `AGENTS.md` initialization or repository facts;
+- general prompt, agent-persona, or command editing that is not an Agent Skill artifact;
+- automatic post-task cleanup or a repository-wide Skill sweep;
+- lifecycle, approval, or harness changes whose accepted owner has not selected Skill authoring work.
+
+Read [`GLOSSARY.md`](GLOSSARY.md) only when choosing vocabulary, diagnosing a failure mode, or deciding whether material belongs inline, behind a pointer, or in another canonical owner. A routine bounded edit with a clear branch does not need the complete glossary.
+
+Read [`docs/harness/skill-capability-contract.md`](../../../docs/harness/skill-capability-contract.md) when adding or changing runtime assumptions, owned resources, compatibility, provenance, or a Skill's component-manifest entry. It is the canonical capability and adapter boundary for this repository.
+
+## Core Loop
+
+### 1. Establish the contract
+
+Inspect the relevant project rules, current Skill, neighboring owners, active manifests/fixtures, and accepted lifecycle scope before proposing content.
+
+Define:
+
+- one canonical identity and repository-local placement;
+- the selected branch and user-visible goal;
+- positive triggers, near misses, and ownership handoffs;
+- allowed files/resources and non-goals;
+- required/optional capabilities, their missing behavior, and current adapter evidence;
+- material decisions, operation approvals, and verification claim.
+
+If the Skill is new, broad, renamed, overlaps another owner, or changes routing, show the proposed boundary and resource changes before editing. Return any approval or material decision need to ROSE; do not invoke another process skill.
+
+**Completion criterion:** identity, scope, owner, placement, approval state, and evidence target are all explicit; unresolved material items stop affected writing.
+
+### 2. Design invocation
+
+Write the frontmatter first. Keep the folder name and `name` identical, lowercase, and kebab-case.
+
+Treat `description` as the top-level **context pointer**:
+
+- front-load the Agent Skill task shape or strongest **leading word**;
+- give one trigger for each genuinely different **branch**;
+- name likely near misses where overlap would be costly;
+- remove taglines, synonyms, and body summaries that do not improve routing.
+
+Use ordinary repository frontmatter unless an accepted platform contract requires more fields.
+
+**Completion criterion:** realistic positive prompts select this Skill, realistic near misses do not, and the description does not compete with another canonical owner.
+
+### 3. Build the information hierarchy
+
+Place material according to when the agent needs it:
+
+1. common ordered actions and hard boundaries in `SKILL.md`;
+2. conditional definitions, examples, and diagnostics in a named reference reached by a precise pointer;
+3. deterministic operations in `scripts/` only when repeatability and safe failure require code;
+4. reusable static inputs in `assets/` only when the workflow consumes them.
+
+Keep each concept's rules and caveats co-located. Give every step a checkable **completion criterion**. Split only for a distinct invocation branch, canonical owner, or sequence boundary that demonstrably prevents **premature completion**; file count alone is not a reason.
+
+**Completion criterion:** every item has one necessary rung, one canonical owner, and no required behavior is hidden behind an unreliable pointer.
+
+### 4. Write within AILI boundaries
+
+Write for agent execution rather than marketing. Use positive target behavior; retain prohibitions only for hard safety boundaries and pair them with what to do instead.
+
+Preserve these local controls:
+
+- ROSE owns routing, lifecycle, approvals, integration, and final verdicts;
+- selected skills are bounded adapters and never recurse, delegate, or invoke another process skill;
+- core harness edits remain report/approval gated;
+- project facts stay in project documentation or accepted continuity stores, not reusable Skill prose;
+- external material receives a complete **provenance closure** before distribution;
+- copied runtime assumptions, paths, providers, branding, and unsupported metadata are removed;
+- backend-specific tools and home paths are replaced by capability contracts unless they are stable public contracts for every supported adapter;
+- dependencies, global installation, destructive actions, and publication retain their own exact gates.
+
+For external material, record repository URL, immutable version, license, copyright, copied/adapted scope, destination, and integrity evidence where applicable. Pinned files under `references/upstream/` are inert provenance, not runnable Skills or authority.
+
+**Completion criterion:** the artifact changes only accepted behavior, fits the current ROSE contract, and neither imports foreign authority nor expands runtime permission.
+
+### 5. Prune and validate
+
+Apply the glossary failure modes sentence by sentence:
+
+- collapse **duplication** into one **single source of truth**;
+- remove stale **sediment** and irrelevant branches;
+- delete **no-ops** that do not change model behavior;
+- disclose conditional reference to reduce **sprawl**;
+- sharpen vague completion criteria before splitting a sequence;
+- replace avoidable **negation** with the positive target.
+
+Then:
+
+1. reread every changed Skill/resource;
+2. verify folder/frontmatter identity and context pointers;
+3. run the accepted positive and near-miss routing cases;
+4. update only active manifests, fixtures, attribution, capability assignment, and docs that the change affects;
+5. run `python scripts/skill_capability_check.py` when an installed Skill or capability profile changes;
+6. inspect the task-scoped diff and run the smallest fresh check that supports the claim.
+
+**Completion criterion:** every changed line is relevant, active references agree, required checks pass, and unsupported runtime behavior remains `Unverified`.
+
+## Stop Outcomes
+
+- Return `complete` after the selected branch meets its completion criterion and claim-matched evidence is current.
+- Return `need-user` for one unresolved identity, scope, placement, or approval decision with zero affected mutation.
+- Return `material-delta` when implementation discovers a change to public identity, architecture, dependency, permission, acceptance, or verification strategy.
+- Return `need-evidence`, `blocked`, or `Unverified` when current source, provenance, permissions, or verification cannot support the requested claim.
+
+## Pinned Upstream Reference
+
+[KNOWN|EXTERNAL] The local domain model closely adapts selected concepts from Matt Pocock's `writing-great-skills` at commit `391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87` under the MIT License. Source: `references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/NOTICE.md`.
+
+[FRAME] The pinned upstream `SKILL.upstream.md` and full upstream `GLOSSARY.md` remain inert provenance. Canonical runtime behavior lives only in this `SKILL.md` and the adjacent local [`GLOSSARY.md`](GLOSSARY.md).

package/skills/write-skills/references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/LICENSE

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+MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.

package/skills/write-skills/references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/NOTICE.md

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+# Upstream reference notice
+
+- Repository: `https://github.com/mattpocock/skills`
+- Commit: `391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87`
+- Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock
+- License: root MIT `LICENSE` copied beside this notice
+- Mappings: `skills/productivity/writing-great-skills/SKILL.md` → `productivity/writing-great-skills/SKILL.upstream.md`; `GLOSSARY.md` keeps its basename.
+
+The pinned closure is inert provenance/reference data, not a runnable skill, command, approval, integrity authority, or permission grant. Canonical behavior remains `.agents/skills/write-skills/SKILL.md` and its adjacent local `GLOSSARY.md`.

package/skills/write-skills/references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/productivity/writing-great-skills/GLOSSARY.md

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+# Glossary — Building Great Skills
+
+The domain model for what makes a skill great. A skill exists to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system; the root virtue is **Predictability**, and every term below is a lever on it. This is the disclosed reference for [`writing-great-skills`](SKILL.md).
+
+The terms are grouped by axis: **Invocation** (how a skill is reached), **Information Hierarchy** (how its content is arranged), **Steering** (how the agent's runtime behaviour is shaped), and **Pruning** (how it is kept lean). Each **failure mode** lives beside the lever that cures it, tagged _failure mode_.
+
+**Bold terms** in any definition are themselves defined in this glossary; find them by their heading.
+
+## Predictability
+
+The degree to which a skill makes the agent behave the same _way_ on every run — the same process, not the same output (a brainstorming skill should _predictably_ diverge; its tokens vary, its behaviour doesn't). The root virtue every other term serves — cost and maintainability are symptoms of it, not rivals.
+
+_Avoid_: consistency, reliability, robustness, output-determinism
+
+## Invocation
+
+How a skill is reached — and the two loads you pay for the choice.
+
+### Model-Invoked
+
+A skill that keeps its **description** field, so the agent can see it and fire it autonomously — and the human can still type its name, so model-invocation always _includes_ user reach. There is no model-only state: a description only ever _adds_ agent discovery, never removes the human's. Pays a permanent **context load** on every turn in exchange for that discoverability. Reachable by other skills, because the description that makes it agent-discoverable makes it invocable. A model-invoked skill whose content is all **reference** is also one home for shared reference: another skill can invoke it, so reference needed by several skills lives in one place. Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own; if it never fires except by hand, drop the description and pay no context load.
+
+_Avoid_: ability, tool, capability
+
+### User-Invoked
+
+A skill with its **description** stripped — invisible to the agent and reachable only by the human typing its name (user-_only_, where **model-invoked** is user-_and-agent_). Trades agent-discoverability for zero **context load**. Because it has no description, nothing but the human can reach it: no other skill can fire it.
+
+_Avoid_: procedure, workflow, command
+
+### Description
+
+The skill's machine-readable trigger, and the one **context pointer** a **model-invoked** skill is forced to keep loaded at all times. Its mere presence _is_ the invocation axis: keep it and the skill is model-invoked (and reachable by other skills); delete it and the skill is **user-invoked**, reachable only by the human. The source of a model-invoked skill's **context load**.
+
+_Avoid_: frontmatter, summary
+
+### Context Pointer
+
+A reference held in the agent's context that names some out-of-context material and encodes the condition for reaching it. The **description** is the top-level context pointer (context window → skill); pointers to disclosed files are the same object one level down. Its wording, not the target, decides _when_ the agent reaches — and _how reliably_. A must-have target behind a weakly worded pointer is a variance bug: fix the wording first, and inline the material only if sharpening fails.
+
+_Avoid_: link, reference, import
+
+### Context Load
+
+The cost a **model-invoked** skill imposes on the agent's context window — its **description**, always loaded, spending both tokens and attention. What **user-invoked** skills escape by having no description, and the brake on splitting into more model-invoked skills.
+
+_Avoid_: token cost, context bloat
+
+### Cognitive Load
+
+The cost a **user-invoked** skill imposes on the human — what they must hold in their head: which skills exist and when to reach for each (the human is the index). What **model-invocation** removes by being agent-discoverable, and the brake on splitting into more user-invoked skills. Not a cost to minimise: it is the price of human agency, the reason some skills stay user-invoked. Spend it where human judgement matters; remove it where it does not.
+
+_Avoid_: human index, burden, overhead
+
+### Router Skill
+
+A **user-invoked** skill whose job is to point at your other user-invoked skills — naming each and when to reach for it — so the human has one skill to remember instead of many. It can only hint, never fire them: user-invoked skills have no **description**, so nothing but the human can reach them. The cure for **cognitive load** when user-invoked skills multiply.
+
+_Avoid_: dispatcher, menu, registry, index, router procedure
+
+### Granularity
+
+How finely you divide skills. Finer division spends one of the two loads: more **model-invoked** skills spend **context load** (more descriptions crowding the window and competing for attention); more **user-invoked** skills spend **cognitive load** (more for the human to remember and reach for). Two cuts guide the division. By **invocation**, split off a model-invoked skill where you have a distinct **leading word** to trigger it — a trigger word you actually use in your prompts. By **sequence**, split a run of **steps** where a step's **post-completion steps** need hiding, since isolating it in its own context clears what follows. Beware the reverse: merging sequences exposes each step's post-completion steps to what follows, inviting premature completion.
+
+_Avoid_: chunking, modularity
+
+## Information Hierarchy
+
+How a skill's content is arranged, and how far down the ladder each piece sits.
+
+### Information Hierarchy
+
+A skill's content ranked by how immediately the agent needs it — a single ladder, produced by two cuts: in-file or behind a pointer, and step or reference. The rungs:
+
+- **Steps** — in-file, primary
+- **Reference**, in-file — secondary
+- **Reference**, disclosed — behind a **context pointer**
+
+A skill with no **steps** uses just the bottom two rungs — often a legitimately flat peer-set (e.g. every rule of a review on one rung), which is a fine arrangement, not a smell. The hierarchy is independent of invocation: a skill can be model- or user-invoked whether it is all steps, all reference, or both. When a skill has steps, in-file reference that should be disclosed buries them and turns attending to them into a coin-flip — a variance lever, not just a legibility one. Keep the top of the ladder legible; push down it whatever you can.
+
+_Avoid_: structure, organization, layout
+
+### Steps
+
+The ordered actions the agent performs — when a skill has them, the primary tier of its content, and the part that earns its place in SKILL.md. Not every skill has steps: a skill can be all steps (`tdd`), all **reference** (a review), or both, independent of invocation. Every step ends on a **completion criterion**, clear or vague.
+
+_Avoid_: workflow, instructions, choreography
+
+### Reference
+
+Material the agent refers to on demand — definitions, facts, parameters, examples, conditional instructions. When a skill has **steps** it is secondary to them; when a skill has none it is the entire content; or it lives outside any skill entirely — see **External Reference**. Reached via **context pointers**, and the prime candidate for **progressive disclosure**.
+
+_Avoid_: supporting material, docs, background
+
+### External Reference
+
+**Reference** that lives outside the skill system — a plain file, no **description**, no **steps**, not invocable — that any skill can point at. The home for shared reference that needn't fire on its own, and the only shared home two **user-invoked** skills can use, since neither has a description and so neither can fire the other.
+
+_Avoid_: doc, resource, knowledge base
+
+### Progressive Disclosure
+
+Moving **reference** down the ladder — out of SKILL.md and behind a **context pointer** — so the top stays legible. Not primarily a token optimisation; it is how the **information hierarchy** is protected. Licensed by **branching**: disclose what only some branches need, inline what every path needs, and if a pointer fires unreliably on must-have material, sharpen its wording, and pull it back inline only if that fails.
+
+_Avoid_: lazy loading, chunking
+
+### Co-location
+
+Keeping the material an agent needs at once in one place — a concept's definition, rules, and caveats under a single heading, not scattered across the file — so reading one part brings its neighbours with it. The within-file companion to the **Information Hierarchy**: the hierarchy ranks _how far down_ a piece sits; co-location decides _what sits beside it_ once there. There is no formula for the right format of a body of **reference**; the test is that a skill should read like documentation written for the agent, and grouped material reads that way where scattered material does not. Distinct from **Duplication**: that repeats one meaning in two places, where scattering fragments a single meaning across many.
+
+_Avoid_: grouping, clustering, cohesion
+
+### Sprawl
+
+_Failure mode._ A skill that is simply too long — too many lines in SKILL.md — independent of whether they are stale or repeated. Even an all-live, all-unique skill can sprawl. It costs readability (the agent wades through more before it can act, and attention thins across the excess), maintainability (every extra line is one more to keep **relevant**), and tokens. The cure is the **information hierarchy**: push **reference** down behind **context pointers**, and split by **branch** or sequence so each path carries only what it needs. Distinct from **sediment** (length from stale accumulation) and **duplication** (length from repeated meaning) — sprawl is length itself, whatever its cause.
+
+_Avoid_: bloat, length, size, verbosity
+
+## Steering
+
+The levers that shape the agent's runtime behaviour toward **Predictability**.
+
+### Branch
+
+A distinct way a skill can be invoked — a case the skill handles — so different runs take different paths through it. A skill with many steps may carry many branches; a linear one has none.
+
+_Avoid_: path, case, fork
+
+### Leading Word
+
+A compact concept — also called a _Leitwort_ — already living in the model's pretraining, that the agent thinks with while running the skill. It encodes a behavioural principle in the fewest possible tokens by invoking priors the model already holds (e.g. _lesson_, _proximal zone of development_, _fog of war_, _tracer bullets_). Repeated as a token, never as a sentence, it accumulates a distributed definition across the skill and anchors a whole region of behaviour. Coining your own works if you define it clearly, but a made-up word recruits no priors — you pay in definition tokens what a pretrained word gives free. Reach for an existing word first.
+
+A leading word serves **predictability** twice. In the body it anchors **execution** — the agent reaches for the same behaviour every time the concept appears, and inside flat reference it focuses attention on a class of thing to look for, recruiting the right checks each run. In the **description** it anchors **invocation** — and not only within the skill: when the same word lives in your prompts, your docs, and your codebase, the agent links that shared language to the skill and fires it more reliably. Word a description with the leading words you actually use when you want the skill.
+
+_Avoid_: keyword, term, motif
+
+### Completion Criterion
+
+The condition that tells the agent a unit of work is done — the target it judges against. Two properties make it a lever, not just a quality. Its **clarity** (can the agent tell done from not-done?) resists **premature completion** — a vague bound ("understanding reached") lets the agent declare done and slip to the next step; this axis needs _steps_ to bite, since premature completion is a between-steps failure. Its **demand** (how much it requires) sets **legwork** — "every modified model accounted for" forces thorough work where "produce a change list" does not — and this axis is _not_ step-bound: it can bind a body of flat reference too, which is how a skill with no steps still carries an exhaustiveness bar ("every rule applied"). The strongest criteria are both checkable and exhaustive.
+
+_Avoid_: done condition, exit condition, stopping rule
+
+### Legwork
+
+The work an agent does behind the scenes within a single step — reading files, exploring the codebase, making changes, digging up what it needs rather than offloading to the user. It lives below the step structure: never written as its own step, latent in the wording, controlled by the agent rather than the skill. The within-step counterpart to **post-completion steps**' across-step pull. Raised by a **leading word** (_comprehensive_, _thorough_) or a **completion criterion** that demands the work be exhaustive — including the demand axis applied to flat reference, which is what drives a skill of flat reference to cover all its rungs. Goes thin either when that demand is missing or when **premature completion** cuts the step short.
+
+_Avoid_: scope, effort, diligence, coverage
+
+### Post-Completion Steps
+
+The **steps** that follow the current step. Visible, they pull the agent forward into **premature completion** — the more it sees, the stronger the tug; the defence is to hide them by splitting the sequence of steps into two.
+
+_Avoid_: horizon, fog of war, lookahead
+
+### Premature Completion
+
+_Failure mode._ Ending the current step before it is genuinely done, because the agent's attention slips to being done rather than to the work. A between-steps failure: it needs **steps** to occur — a skill with no steps that quits early isn't premature completion but thin **legwork** under an unmet demand. A tug-of-war between two forces: visible **post-completion steps** (the pull forward) and the **completion criterion**'s clarity (the resistance — a sharp, checkable bar holds; a vague one gives way). Fuzziness is the necessary condition: a sharp bound resists the pull no matter how many later steps are visible, so a step that never rushes needs no defending. Two levers hold a step that does, but reach for them in order: **sharpen the bound first** — it is local and cheap. Only when the criterion is irreducibly fuzzy _and_ you actually observe the rush do you **hide the later steps** — and hiding only works across a real context boundary (a user-invoked hand-off or a subagent dispatch; an inline model-invoked call leaves the later steps in context and clears nothing). One cause of thin legwork, but distinct from it: legwork can be thin even when a step runs to full completion.
+
+_Avoid_: premature closure, the rush, rushing, shortcutting
+
+### Negation
+
+_Failure mode._ Steering by prohibition — telling the agent what _not_ to do — which drags the forbidden behaviour into context and makes it _more_ available, not less. _Don't think of an elephant_, and the elephant is all there is; _never write verbose comments_, and verbosity is the pattern the agent has just read. The negation is a weak modifier the strongly-activated concept overruns, so the ban half-reads as an instruction to do the thing. Its **leading word** is the _elephant_: whatever a prohibition names into the frame. Cure: prompt the **positive** — describe the target behaviour ("write one-line comments") so the banned one is never spoken. A prohibition earns its place only as a hard guardrail on a behaviour you cannot phrase positively; even then, pair it with the positive target so attention lands on what to do.
+
+_Avoid_: ironic rebound, don't-prompting, the pink elephant
+
+## Pruning
+
+Keeping a skill lean — each remedy paired with the failure it cures.
+
+### Single Source of Truth
+
+The desired state where each meaning lives in exactly one authoritative place, so a change to the skill's behaviour is a change in one place. **Duplication** is its violation.
+
+_Avoid_: home, canonical location
+
+### Duplication
+
+_Failure mode._ The same meaning given more than one **single source of truth**. It costs maintenance (change one place, you must change the others), costs tokens, and inflates prominence — repeating a meaning weights it on the ladder past its real rank. The accidental inverse of a **leading word**, which raises attention on purpose by repeating a token, never the meaning.
+
+_Avoid_: repetition, redundancy
+
+### Relevance
+
+Whether a line still bears on what the skill does — the lens for what to keep. A line loses relevance either by never bearing on the task (mere exposition, or a **branch** that should be disclosed) or by going stale: drifting out of date as the behaviour or world it describes changes. Shorter skills are easier to keep relevant, because each line is cheaper to check. Distinct from **no-op**: relevance asks whether a line bears on the task, not whether it changes behaviour.
+
+_Avoid_: load-bearing, staleness, freshness
+
+### Sediment
+
+_Failure mode._ Layers of old content that settle in a skill and are never cleared, because adding feels safe and removing feels risky — so stale and irrelevant lines accumulate and you must core down through them to find what is still live. The default fate of any skill without a pruning discipline; the slow erosion of **relevance**, as opposed to **duplication**'s repeated meaning.
+
+_Avoid_: accretion, bloat, cruft, rot
+
+### No-Op
+
+_Failure mode._ An instruction that changes nothing because the model already does it by default — you pay load to tell the agent what it would do anyway. The test: does a line change behaviour versus the default? A line can be perfectly **relevant** and still be a no-op. The same priors that make a **leading word** free make a no-op worthless.
+
+A leading word is a _technique_; No-Op is a _verdict_ on a line — and they cross. A leading word too weak to beat the default is a no-op (_be thorough_ when the agent is already thorough-ish), and the fix is a stronger word that passes the verdict (_relentless_), not a different technique. So the No-Op test — does it change behaviour versus the default? — is also how you grade whether a leading word is earning its repetitions. This is model-relative, not reader-relative: two people disagreeing over whether a line is a no-op disagree about the default, and settle it by running the skill, not by debate.
+
+_Avoid_: redundant instruction, restating the obvious, belaboring

package/skills/write-skills/references/upstream/mattpocock-skills/391a2701dd948f94f56a39f7533f8eea9a859c87/productivity/writing-great-skills/SKILL.upstream.md

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+---
+name: writing-great-skills
+description: Reference for writing and editing skills well — the vocabulary and principles that make a skill predictable.
+disable-model-invocation: true
+---
+
+A skill exists to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system. **Predictability** — the agent taking the same _process_ every run, not producing the same output — is the root virtue; every lever below serves it.
+
+**Bold terms** are defined in [`GLOSSARY.md`](GLOSSARY.md); look them up there for the full meaning.
+
+## Invocation
+
+Two choices, trading different costs:
+
+- A **model-invoked** skill keeps a **description**, so the agent can fire it autonomously _and_ other skills can reach it (you can still type its name too). It contributes to **context load** — the description sits in the window every turn. Mechanics: omit `disable-model-invocation`, and write a model-facing description with rich trigger phrasing ("Use when the user wants…, mentions…").
+- A **user-invoked** skill strips the description from the agent's reach: only you, typing its name, can invoke it — and no other skill can. Zero context load, but it spends **cognitive load**: _you_ are the index that must remember it exists. Mechanics: set `disable-model-invocation: true`; the `description` becomes human-facing — a one-line summary, trigger lists stripped.
+
+Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own, or another skill must. If it only ever fires by hand, make it user-invoked and pay no context load.
+
+When user-invoked skills multiply past what you can remember, that piled-up cognitive load is cured by a **router skill**: one user-invoked skill that names the others and when to reach for each.
+
+## Writing the description
+
+A model-invoked **description** does two jobs — state what the skill is, and list the **branches** that should trigger it. Every word increases **context load**, so a description earns even harder pruning than the body:
+
+- **Front-load the skill's leading word** — the description is where it does its invocation work.
+- **One trigger per branch.** Synonyms that rename a single branch are **duplication** — "build features using TDD … asks for test-first development" is one branch written twice. Collapse them; keep only genuinely distinct branches.
+- **Cut identity that's already in the body.** Keep the description to triggers, plus any "when another skill needs…" reach clause.
+
+## Information hierarchy
+
+A skill is built from two content types — **steps** and **reference** — that mix freely: a skill can be all steps, all reference, or both. The core decision is which to use and where each sits on the **information hierarchy**, a ladder ranked by how immediately the agent needs the material:
+
+1. **In-skill step** — an ordered action in `SKILL.md`, the primary tier: what the agent does, in order. Each step ends on a **completion criterion**, the condition that tells the agent the work is done. Make it _checkable_ (can the agent tell done from not-done?) and, where it matters, _exhaustive_ ("every modified model accounted for", not "produce a change list") — a vague criterion invites **premature completion**.
+2. **In-skill reference** — a definition, rule, or fact in `SKILL.md`, consulted on demand. Often a legitimately flat peer-set (every rule of a review on one rung) — a fine arrangement, not a smell. _This skill is all reference._
+3. **External reference** — reference pushed out of `SKILL.md` into a separate file, reached by a **context pointer**, loaded only when the pointer fires. (Spans _disclosed_ reference — a sibling file like `GLOSSARY.md`, still part of the skill — through fully **external reference** that lives outside the skill system and any skill can point at.)
+
+A demanding completion criterion drives thorough **legwork** — the digging the agent does within the work — whether the skill has steps or not, since "every rule applied" binds flat reference just as "every step done" binds a sequence.
+
+Push too little down and the top bloats; push too much and you hide material the agent actually needs. That tension is the whole decision.
+
+**Progressive disclosure** is the move down the ladder — out of `SKILL.md` into a linked file — so the top stays legible. Mechanics: a linked `.md` file in the skill folder, named for what it holds (this skill discloses its full definitions to `GLOSSARY.md`). Some skills are used in more than one way, and each distinct way is a **branch** — different runs taking different paths through the skill. Branching is the cleanest disclosure test: inline what every branch needs, and push behind a pointer what only some branches reach. A **context pointer**'s _wording_, not its target, decides when and how reliably the agent reaches the material.
+
+Where the ladder decides _how far down_ a piece sits, **co-location** decides _what sits beside it_ once there: keep a concept's definition, rules, and caveats under one heading rather than scattered, so reading one part brings its neighbours with it.
+
+## When to split
+
+**Granularity** is how finely you divide skills, and each cut spends one of the two loads, so split only when the cut earns it. Two cuts:
+
+- **By invocation** — split off a **model-invoked** skill when you have a distinct **leading word** that should trigger it on its own, or another skill must reach it. You pay **context load** for the new always-loaded **description**, so that independent reach has to be worth it.
+- **By sequence** — split a run of **steps** when the steps still ahead (a step's **post-completion steps**) tempt the agent to rush the one in front of it (**premature completion**). Keeping them out of view encourages the agent to do more **legwork** on the current task.
+
+## Pruning
+
+Keep each meaning in a **single source of truth**: one authoritative place, so changing the behaviour is a one-place edit.
+
+Check every line for **relevance**: does it still bear on what the skill does?
+
+Then hunt **no-ops** sentence by sentence, not just line by line: run the no-op test on each sentence in isolation, and when one fails, delete the whole sentence rather than trim words from it. Be aggressive — most prose that fails should go, not be rewritten.
+
+## Leading words
+
+A **leading word** is a compact concept already living in the model's pretraining that the agent thinks with while running the skill (e.g. _lesson_, _fog of war_, _tracer bullets_). Repeated throughout the text (though not necessarily - a strong leading word might only be needed once), it accumulates a distributed definition and anchors a whole region of behaviour in the fewest tokens, by recruiting priors the model already holds.
+
+It serves predictability twice. In the body it anchors _execution_: the agent reaches for the same behaviour every time the word appears. In the description it anchors _invocation_: when the same word lives in your prompts, docs, and code, the agent links that shared language to the skill and fires it more reliably.
+
+Hunt for opportunities to refactor skills to use leading words. A triad spelled out at three sites (**duplication**), a description spending a sentence to gesture at one idea — each is a passage begging to **collapse** into a single token. Examples include:
+
+- "fast, deterministic, low-overhead" -> _tight_ — one quality restated across a phase — into a single pretrained word (a _tight_ loop).
+- "a loop you believe in" -> _red_ — converts a fuzzy gate into a binary observable state (the loop goes _red_ on the bug, or it doesn't).
+
+You win twice over: fewer tokens, _and_ a sharper hook for the agent to hang its thinking on. Assume every skill is carrying restatements that leading words retire — go find them.
+
+## Failure modes
+
+Use these to diagnose issues the user may be having with the skill.
+
+- **Premature completion** — ending a step before it's genuinely done, attention slipping to _being done_. Defence, in order: sharpen the completion criterion first (cheap, local); only if it is irreducibly fuzzy _and_ you observe the rush, hide the post-completion steps by splitting (the sequence cut).
+- **Duplication** — the same meaning in more than one place. Costs maintenance and tokens, and inflates a meaning's prominence on the ladder past its real rank.
+- **Sediment** — stale layers that settle because adding feels safe and removing feels risky. The default fate of any skill without a pruning discipline.
+- **Sprawl** — a skill simply too long, even when every line is live and unique. Hurts readability and maintainability and wastes tokens. The cure is the ladder: disclose **reference** behind pointers, and split by **branch** or sequence so each path carries only what it needs.
+- **No-op** — a line the model already obeys by default, so you pay load to say nothing. The test: does it change behaviour versus the default? A weak leading word (_be thorough_ when the agent is already thorough-ish) is a no-op; the fix is a stronger word (_relentless_), not a different technique.
+- **Negation** — steering by prohibition backfires: _don't think of an elephant_ names the elephant and makes it more available, not less. Prompt the **positive** — state the target behaviour so the banned one is never spoken; keep a prohibition only as a hard guardrail you can't phrase positively, and even then pair it with what to do instead.