S
Skilldex
Get the CLI

Creating a skill

1. Scaffold it

skillpm init log-triage
cd log-triage

This creates log-triage/SKILL.md from a template that already passes validation. The name must be kebab-case and cannot contain claude or anthropic.

2. Write the description

The description is how an agent decides whether to use your skill, so it matters more than anything else in the file. Say what the skill does and when to reach for it, in at least 30 words. Keep it quoted.

---
name: log-triage
description: "Triage application logs and stack traces to find the root cause of a failure. Use this skill when investigating a bug, a production incident, or a crash, and when the user shares logs, traces, or error output and asks what went wrong."
tags: [debugging, logs]
---

3. Write the instructions

Below the frontmatter, write what the agent should do — concrete steps, rules, and examples, addressed to the agent that will follow them:

# Log triage

## When to use this

When the user shares logs or a stack trace and wants to know why something failed.

## Steps

1. Find the first error, not the loudest one.
2. ...

Keep SKILL.md under 500 lines; move long reference material into references/.

4. Add resources (optional)

log-triage/
├── SKILL.md
├── scripts/       ← code the skill runs
├── references/    ← documents to load when needed
└── assets/        ← templates, images

Mention a file by its path in SKILL.md — scripts/extract.py — and the validator checks that it exists.

5. Validate and try it

skillpm validate
cd ..
skillpm install ./log-triage

Installing from the folder links the skill into your agent's skills directories, so you can try it before publishing. Reinstall with --force after each change.

Next steps