For skills, standing agent instructions, recorded rules, or documents agents skip, write and prune reliable triggers and checkable steps. Use to author or revise SKILL.md, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, rules and references, or diagnose unreliable invocation and skimming.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Writing for Agents
Read the [Codex desktop binding](../../../CODEX.md) when this workflow needs harness mechanics, model routing, or recovery.
Every document an agent reads is a **behavior lever**, not prose. The packaging differs across a skill, a standing instruction file, and a reference reached by a pointer, but the writing does not: the same levers make each one predictable. Predictable means the agent takes the same *process* every run. It does not mean the agent produces the same output.
This skill is reference, not a sequence: consult the rung that matches what you're writing. For frontmatter, invocation modes, a step that must load another skill, and this repo's catalog invariants, read [references/skill-mechanics.md](references/skill-mechanics.md). When the reader is a human, as on a landing page, a README's front half, or a launch post, these levers read cold; use [writing-for-humans](../writing-for-humans/SKILL.md) instead.
## Context pointers
…
The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261008.0b04f1c, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.
pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (12295 bytes)
pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
pass: No credential-shaped string
pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
pass: No text hidden with inline styles
pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
pass: No link to a raw IP address
pass: No script tag
Source
GitHub
timharris707/skills · 44 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-19 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_6psnyv3owwafqcva
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=timharris707/skills/writing-for-agents
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/1c3753026bd0e31dd34a90160f7425c5c202c81a48d42ea77eb9d473a6247187
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
timharris707/skills · editions/codex/overrides/skills/investigate/ingest/SKILL.md · For a media file or URL shared with a goal, transcription requests, or takeaways from a call, demo, playtest, or video…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/author/huh/SKILL.md · When a message did not land or pasted agent output needs translation, restate it plainly, expand shorthand, separate…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/author/plainspoken/SKILL.md · For chat replies, status updates, review comments, and commit messages, write plainly without AI tells. Also use to…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/author/writing-for-humans/SKILL.md · For public-facing drafts, pages that read like agent documentation, or a final AI-tell scrub, write clear human copy in…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/decide/advisory-board/SKILL.md · For an explicitly requested advisory board, roundtable, panel, idea tournament, multi-model review or debate, red-team…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/decide/decision-map/SKILL.md · When asked to chart a decision map, work a map ticket, or plan work whose open decisions gate each other, map the…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/decide/grilling/SKILL.md · When asked to grill, stress-test, or pressure-test an idea, or before a decision map or spec rests on an untested…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/investigate/codebase-review/SKILL.md · Before an upcoming feature, when merged work crosses the recorded review threshold, or when implementation exposes…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/investigate/ingest/SKILL.md · For a media file or URL shared with a goal, transcription requests, or takeaways from a call, demo, playtest, or video…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/investigate/prototype/SKILL.md · When discussion or static mockups cannot settle how something should look, behave, or feel, build a disposable…
timharris707/skills · plugins/clickai-codex/skills/investigate/research/SKILL.md · For factual investigations of vendor materials, regulations, upstream repositories, recorded calls, or other evidence…
kunolu/640-skills · sbtd-workflow-onboard/assets/external-skills/stable/skills/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
qshanx/docs-governance · skills/documentation/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
timharris707/skills · skills/author/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Write and prune documents an agent consumes: a SKILL.md, an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, a rules file, a reference file…
vodailocz/kilo-kit-mcp · skills/productivity/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
j-star-films-studios/vibecode-protocol-suite · assets/.agent/skills/agent-engineering/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
mambo-wang/codewiki-plus · .codebuddy/skills/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
mambo-wang/codewiki-plus · .trae/skills/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md · Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
