skill-authoring SKILL.md skillA
skill-authoring from stackhawk/agent-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add stackhawk/agent-skills/skill-authoring@v1.1.0Pins v1.1.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- stackhawk/agent-skills
- Path
.claude/skills/skill-authoring/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 6
- Latest version
- v1.1.0, committed Oct 28, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 13, 2026
- Size
- 9,333 bytes
- Repository stars
- 16
- License
- MIT
Guides authoring and maintaining agent skills in this repository — enforcing Anthropic best practices, release-version rules, regenerating Cursor rules, and keeping the plugin structure consistent. Use when editing SKILL.md files, reference files, or plugin manifests; creating a new plugin; or reviewing a skill for compliance with authoring standards. Do NOT trigger for general coding tasks, security scanning, or platform API queries.
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
# Skill Authoring Guide
This skill documents the rules for creating and maintaining agent skills in
the `stackhawk/agent-skills` repository.
---
## Authoring Rules (Quick Reference)
These are the non-negotiable rules. CI validates them on every PR.
| Rule | Requirement |
|------|-------------|
| SKILL.md length | Body ≤ 500 lines (excluding frontmatter) |
| Frontmatter | `name:`, `version:`, `description:` all required |
| Description | Third person; max 1024 characters |
| Reference files | All linked from SKILL.md; must not link to each other |
| Reference ToC | Required when file > 100 lines |
| Progressive disclosure | Summary + link in SKILL.md; detail in `references/` |
---
## SKILL.md Rules
### Frontmatter
Every SKILL.md must open with a YAML frontmatter block:
```yaml
---
name: <skill-name> # matches the plugin directory name and symlink folder name
version: <semver> # the in-tree placeholder (0.0.0-dev); the release stamps the real number
description: > # third person; max 1024 characters; describes when to trigger
...
---
```
**Description writing rules:**
- Third person ("Guides authoring...", not "I help you author...")
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add stackhawk/agent-skills/skill-authoring@sha256:5ff51f3919c455f3The line at the top of this page pins the label v1.1.0, 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.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_e3trutj4umeygqun)
5 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 6 versions of this file, between Jul 13, 2026 and Oct 28, 2026, about one every 21 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v1.1.0 latest | 2026-10-28 | d9c66cc | 9,333 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.0 | 2026-09-09 | c3bb29a | 8,636 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.5.1 | 2026-09-09 | 4089d13 | 8,636 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.5.0 | 2026-08-13 | 19c1457 | 8,636 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.4.0 | 2026-07-20 | b0f5201 | 8,636 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.3.4 | 2026-07-13 | 9b9f56d | 8,636 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9333 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
stackhawk/agent-skills · 16 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-06 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_e3trutj4umeygqun GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=stackhawk/agent-skills/skill-authoring GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/5ff51f3919c455f37e6a2a0e28658efbe7a0d86ea0d174f80c68c315f159f389
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.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.
More from stackhawk/agent-skills
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