skill-authoring

HOTL Skill Authoring

Overview

HOTL skills are behavior-shaping code. Treat changes to skill text, agent prompts, command routers, and adapter instructions with the same care as production logic: define the failure mode, make the desired behavior explicit, verify the change, and update every index or mirror that exposes it.

When To Use

Use this before changing:

• skills/*/SKILL.md
• agents/*.md
• commands/*.md
• cline/rules/*.md
• adapter templates that steer agent behavior
• docs that define skill invocation or routing

Do not use it for ordinary product docs, generated reports, or local project README edits unless they change how agents should behave.

Process

1. State the behavior change

   • What agent behavior is wrong, missing, or ambiguous?
   • What prompt or session exposed the issue?
   • Is the change broadly useful, or project-specific?

2. Choose the right abstraction

   • Skill: reusable workflow or process the user can invoke.
   • Agent: isolated specialist with a stable output contract.
   • Inline prompt: short role text used by one skill only.
   • Script/lint: deterministic rule that should not depend on model judgment.

3. Write trigger-only frontmatter

   • name: kebab-case, no command-name collision.
   • description: says when to activate, not the workflow steps.
   • Avoid descriptions that summarize the process; agents may follow the summary and skip the body.

4. Keep behavior text testable

   • Use direct rules for invariants.
   • Add red flags for common rationalizations.
   • Prefer short, concrete examples over long narratives.
   • Separate heavy references or templates into adjacent files only when they reduce the main skill's noise.

5. Update routing and mirrors

   • Add new skills to skills/using-hotl/SKILL.md.
   • Update docs/skills.md, README tables, and Codex docs for user-visible skill changes.
   • Update Cline rules or adapter templates when their behavior mirrors the changed skill.

6. Verify behavior

   • Add or update smoke tests for structural expectations.
   • For high-impact skill wording, run pressure tests or before/after sessions that demonstrate the target behavior.
   • Run bats test/smoke.bats before claiming the skill change is ready.

Description Trap

The frontmatter description is discovery text, not a miniature skill. If it contains a workflow summary, an agent may act on that summary without reading the full body.

Bad:

description: Use when executing plans - dispatches workers, reviews every task, then finalizes

Good:

description: Use when executing implementation workflows that can delegate contained steps to fresh subagents.

Checklist

• [ ] The change solves a real behavior gap.
• [ ] The abstraction is skill vs agent vs inline vs script for a reason.
• [ ] Frontmatter description is trigger-only.
• [ ] New skills are indexed in using-hotl.
• [ ] User-facing docs list new or renamed skills.
• [ ] Mirrors and adapters are updated when behavior is shared.
• [ ] Smoke tests or pressure tests cover the changed behavior.