Appearance
Pull behavioral rules out of agents into single-file skills. Any agent that needs the rule references the file. Fix once; every agent inherits.
Pattern
Skill Composition
The problem
Same rule, four agents, four copies.
Inlined per agentO(N) edits to fix once
orchestrator.md"Read the log before responding..."
planning-lead.md"Read the log before responding..."
writing-lead.md"Read the log before responding..."
research-lead.md— forgot to add the rule —
Improve the phrasing to "Tail the last 20 entries of the log before responding"...
Fix has to be made 3 times. The 4th agent silently diverges. Discipline-by-convention fails on the first human mistake.
Referenced from one fileO(1) edit to fix all
orchestrator.md→ skills/active-listener.md
planning-lead.md→ skills/active-listener.md
writing-lead.md→ skills/active-listener.md
research-lead.md→ skills/active-listener.md
Improve the phrasing — edit skills/active-listener.md
One edit. All four agents inherit it at next boot. No agent can silently diverge — there's no copy to forget.
What a skill file looks like
Frontmatter + body. One file. Imperative rules only.
skills/mental-model.md
~30–60 lines
---
name: mental-model
use-when: "At the start of every task; after any task with learnings"
---
# Mental Model
Read your expertise file at <expertise_path> before starting.
After completing the task, append any non-obvious learnings to the expertise file under the appropriate section. Keep entries dense and cited — file path plus line number.
Frontmatter
Says when the skill applies. Enables Claude (and authors) to pick skills by trigger context.
Body
Imperative behavioral rules — the prompt text that gets inlined into the agent at boot.
How it wires up
Skills → resolver → agents at boot.
Static composition: agent frontmatter declares which skills it uses. The resolver inlines them once.
Skill library
⚙mental-model.md42 lines
⚙active-listener.md31 lines
⚙zero-micro-mgmt.md48 lines
⚙high-autonomy.md35 lines
🔗
buildSkillsBlock()
reads each referenced skill, inlines body into {{SKILLS_BLOCK}}
runs at boot · once
Agents
planning-lead.md
mental-model, active-listener, zero-micro-mgmt
research-lead.md
mental-model, active-listener, zero-micro-mgmt
writer.md
mental-model, active-listener, high-autonomy
Per-turn overhead: zero. Skills resolve once at boot, not per turn.
Runtime skill selection is not supported — and rarely needed.
The reference catalog
Six skills. One file each. Reused across agents.
mental-model
Maintain your expertise file
read at start, append learnings at end
all
zero-micro-mgmt
Leads delegate, never execute
hand off to members; don't write code
orchestratorleads
active-listener
Tail the Conversation Log before responding
know what your teammates just said
all
conversational-response
Slack-style brevity
leads & orchestrator — no essays
orchestratorleads
high-autonomy
Act without clarifying questions unless blocked
assume reasonable defaults; proceed
workers
precise-worker
Execute exactly as assigned
no scope drift, no interpretation
workers
Several skills appear in multiple agents. That's the point — one file, N agents.
The sizing rule
Skills should be focused. Neither too narrow nor too broad.
Skill file size
line count per skill
TOO NARROW
✓ FOCUSED
TOO BROAD
1 line~30~60100+
✗ Too narrow One-off behaviors. Proliferation without reuse — library becomes noise.
✓ Focused One imperative rule, phrased clearly. Reusable across ≥ 2 agents.
✗ Too broad Drifts toward full agent roles. Hard to compose; shouldn't be one skill.
The discipline
Any rule that applies to two or more agents becomes a skill.
Library of behavioral rules, referenced by frontmatter, inlined at boot. Fix once; everyone inherits. Newly added agents compose from the library — they can't silently miss a rule that isn't theirs to remember.