What problem does it solve? Skills often ship with vague descriptions, bloated bodies, or unnecessary companion files, making them hard to discover and useless when loaded. This standard gives authors and reviewers a concrete bar every SKILL.md must clear before it ships. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Frontmatter rules: Enforces exact name-to-directory matching, trigger-oriented descriptions, and disable-model-invocation for skills with real side effects. - Content discipline: Requires single responsibility per skill, instruction over exposition, and concrete checkable guidance instead of abstract best practices. - Placement and structure guidance: Decides when companion references/ or scripts earn their keep, and when guidance belongs in core/skills/, a profile's skills/, or path-scoped .claude/rules/ files. - Use Case: When writing a new skill for the lacquer or auditing the existing skill set, load this standard to check the description reads as a trigger, the body contains only actionable instructions, and no padding survives review. ## Quick Start Ask the AI to review your new SKILL.md against the skill-authoring-standard before shipping it.
