Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment.
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 Skills
## Overview
**Writing skills IS Test-Driven Development applied to process documentation.**
**Personal skills live in your runtime's skills directory.** See the
skill-loading skill's platform references for the exact
location and loading mechanism.
You write test cases (pressure scenarios with subagents), watch them fail (baseline behavior), write the skill (documentation), watch tests pass (agents comply), and refactor (close loopholes).
**Core principle:** If you didn't watch an agent fail without the skill, you don't know if the skill teaches the right thing.
**REQUIRED BACKGROUND:** You MUST understand test-driven-development before using this skill. That skill defines the fundamental RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle. This skill adapts TDD to documentation.
**Official guidance:** For Anthropic's official skill authoring best practices, see anthropic-best-practices.md. This document provides additional patterns and guidelines that complement the TDD-focused approach in this skill.
## What is a Skill?
A **skill** is a reference guide for proven techniques, patterns, or tools. Skills help future agents find and apply effective approaches.
…
The line at the top of this page pins the label v1.0.1, 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.
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_bwuhdtzcfjrevvwe
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=sodiumjoe/dotfiles/writing-skills
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/6255cfac6813585228cd00e939f73ab7e7ed007b37cd8e57f24637a261a68b74
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.
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md · You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying…
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/dispatching-parallel-agents/SKILL.md · Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/executing-plans/SKILL.md · Use when executing an implementation plan in the current session as the implementer yourself — your human partner chose…
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/finishing-a-development-branch/SKILL.md · Use when implementation is complete, all tests pass, and you need to decide how to integrate the work
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/neovim-review/SKILL.md · Use when the user invokes /neovim-review for a pull request or a local :Review session in Neovim.
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/neovim/SKILL.md · Interact with a running neovim instance over RPC — open files, show diffs, execute Lua. Use when you need to open a…
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/receiving-code-review/SKILL.md · Use when receiving code review feedback, before implementing suggestions, especially if feedback seems unclear or…
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/requesting-code-review/SKILL.md · Use when completing tasks, implementing major features, or before merging to verify work meets requirements
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md · Use when executing implementation plans with independent tasks in the current session
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes
sodiumjoe/dotfiles · home/.agents/skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md · Use when implementing any feature or bugfix, before writing implementation code
a5c-ai/babysitter · library/methodologies/superpowers/skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md · Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment.
coco-research/coco · skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md · Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment
xu123-bob/baize · agent/skills/superpowers/5.1.0/skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md · Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment
jamditis/claude-skills-journalism · superjawn/skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md · Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment
ibrahim-3d/orchestrator-supaconductor · skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md · Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment
