This skill is the meta-skill: it documents the Agent Skills open format itself. Every other skill in this repository follows the conventions defined here.

Why Install This Skill

When your agent loads this skill, it gains the ability to create, review, and edit valid Agent Skills-format skills. That means:

Your agent can build new skills on demand. Describe a workflow you want encoded, and your agent can scaffold a valid SKILL.md with correct frontmatter, progressive disclosure structure, and agent-friendly descriptions.
Existing skills stay valid. When your agent edits a skill, it checks against the format standard — no broken frontmatter, no missing required fields.
Consistency across your skill library. Every skill in your repository follows the same conventions, making them loadable by any Agent Skills-compatible harness.

What You Get

Directory	Purpose
`SKILL.md`	A create-and-review workflow, the core format rules, and a completion checklist
`references/specification.md`	A bundled snapshot of the official format specification
`references/best-practices.md`	Guidance for useful, well-scoped instructions
`references/optimizing-descriptions.md`	How to design and test reliable automatic triggers
`references/using-scripts.md`	How to bundle safe, agent-friendly executable helpers
`references/evaluating-skills.md`	A practical evaluation loop for testing skill quality
`references/client-implementation.md`	Guidance for products that discover and load skills

Quick Start

Ask your agent to create or review a skill, then load this skill first. For a structural check, run:

skills-ref validate path/to/skill

If the reference validator is not installed, your agent should report that clearly and complete the equivalent manual checks.

Triggers

You're creating a new skill and need to know the correct format
You're reviewing an existing skill for format compliance
You want your agent to generate a valid SKILL.md scaffold
You're setting up conventions for a shared skill repository

Requirements

The documentation itself has no runtime dependencies. Optional validation uses the skills-ref reference library; install it in an isolated environment when you want to run its CLI.