Skill Capture

This skill extracts valuable learnings, patterns, and workflows from conversations and persists them as reusable skill files for future sessions.

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When This Skill Activates

Activate when the user mentions ANY of these:

Explicit Requests

• "let's save this as a skill"
• "this workflow should be reusable"
• "capture this as a skill"
• "make this a skill"
• "turn this into a skill"
• "save this pattern"

Workflow Completion Signals

• Complex problem solved after multiple iterations
• Multi-step procedure successfully executed
• Valuable domain knowledge discovered through research
• Code pattern emerged that could benefit other projects

Learning Moments

• "this was tricky to figure out"
• "glad we finally got this working"
• "I wish I knew this earlier"
• "this should be documented"

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Capture Process

Follow these 5 phases in order:

Phase 1: Identification

Review the conversation to identify capturable content:

What to Look For:

Questions to Ask:

• Is this generalizable beyond this specific project?
• Would another Claude instance benefit from this knowledge?
• Did this require multiple iterations to get right?
• Is this non-obvious procedural knowledge?

Phase 2: Destination Planning

Determine where the skill should live:

1. Check if an existing skill should be updated
   - Glob for skills/*/SKILL.md
   - Read related skills to check for overlap

2. If creating new skill:
   - Choose descriptive kebab-case name
   - Create in skills/<skill-name>/ directory

Skill vs. Rule Decision:

If it's a rule/preference, delegate to rules-capture skill instead.

Phase 3: Content Drafting

Transform conversational insights into SKILL.md format:

---
name: <skill-name>
description: <One sentence describing what the skill does and when to use it>
version: 1.0.0
tags:
  - <relevant>
  - <tags>
---

# <Skill Title>

<Brief description of the skill's purpose>

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## When to Use

<Clear triggers for when this skill should activate>

---

## Process

<Step-by-step workflow or procedure>

---

## Examples

<Concrete examples showing the skill in action>

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## Integration

<How this skill works with other skills, if applicable>

Phase 4: Distillation

Extract and refine the content:

1. Extract the Final Approach - Capture only what worked, not the failed attempts
2. Generalize - Remove project-specific details that don't apply broadly
3. Add Context - Explain why certain approaches work, not just what to do
4. Include Examples - Add concrete examples that demonstrate usage

Checklist:

• Removed project-specific paths and names
• Generalized any hardcoded values
• Added explanatory context for non-obvious steps
• Included both good and bad examples where helpful
• Kept language in imperative form

Phase 5: Verification

Ensure the skill is ready for use:

Quality Checks:

Validation:

# Run the package script to validate
scripts/package_skill.py skills/<skill-name>

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What to Capture

Good Candidates

• Workflows that took multiple iterations to get right
• Domain knowledge that required research
• Problem-solving approaches that worked
• Code patterns that could be reused across projects
• Decision rationale for architectural choices
• Integration patterns between tools or services
• Debugging approaches for specific technologies

Anti-Patterns (Do NOT Capture)

• One-off solutions specific to a single project
• Trivial fixes or obvious patterns
• Information already documented elsewhere
• Sensitive or proprietary information
• Incomplete workflows still being refined
• Preferences without procedural value (use rules-capture instead)

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Output Structure

Create two files for each skill:

SKILL.md

See Phase 3 template above. Key principles:

• Use imperative form ("Do X" not "You should do X")
• Be specific ab

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