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Skill Creation Quickstart

One Markdown file. Five minutes. A skill that runs.

What it is

A skill is one SKILL.md file: YAML frontmatter (the contract) plus a prompt body (the instructions). This guide creates a working skill in under 20 lines.

1. Create the file (~1 minute)

mkdir -p skills/code-formatter

Write skills/code-formatter/SKILL.md:

---
name: code-formatter
description: Formats code files to project style. Use when code needs consistent formatting.
allowed-tools: file.read file.write
---

# Code Formatter

Format the file the user points you at to project style.
Preserve behavior. Never invent logic. Ask before reformatting more than one file.

That is 10 lines. Three rules: name matches the directory (lowercase-hyphen), description says what and when (Use when …), allowed-tools declares the minimum.

2. Verify (~30 seconds)

npx agenthood verify

Expected: the skill parses cleanly. If you typo name: code-formatters (directory mismatch), verify fails before anything loads — that is the gate doing its job.

3. Use it (~1 minute)

Copy it into your provider's skill path and invoke it there:

mkdir -p .agents/skills .claude/skills
cp -r skills/code-formatter .agents/skills/code-formatter
cp -r skills/code-formatter .claude/skills/code-formatter

agenthood run executes registered members, not arbitrary skill files — so the
command below hands the new skill's format to a member that is registered. To
use it as a standalone prompt, invoke it in your provider's skill path instead:

npx agenthood run the-scribe "format app.ts using the code-formatter rules"

Next steps