skill-author

A meta-skill for creating, structuring, and publishing AI agent skills. Compatible with Claude Code, OpenAI Agents SDK, GitHub Copilot, and most AI harnesses.

What is a Skill?

A skill is a focused, reusable markdown instruction set (SKILL.md) that tells an AI agent how to do one job reliably. This package ships the skill-author skill — a meta-skill that helps any AI agent create other skills.

Install

npm install -g skill-author
# or as a dev dependency
npm install --save-dev skill-author

Usage

Install the skill into your project

# Install into all supported harness directories
skill-author

# Install into a specific harness only
skill-author --target=claude
skill-author --target=openai
skill-author --target=copilot
skill-author --target=generic

This copies the SKILL.md to:

| Harness | Path | |---|---| | Claude Code | .claude/skills/skill-author/SKILL.md | | OpenAI Agents SDK | .codex/skills/skill-author/SKILL.md | | GitHub Copilot | .github/skills/skill-author/SKILL.md | | Generic / Custom | skills/misc/skill-author/SKILL.md |

Programmatic API

const skillAuthor = require('skill-author');

// Path to the canonical SKILL.md
console.log(skillAuthor.skillPath);

// Validate the skill
skillAuthor.validate();

// Install the skill
skillAuthor.install({ target: 'claude' });

Validate

npm run validate

Checks that SKILL.md has valid frontmatter, required sections, is under 500 lines, and contains no secrets.

Cross-Agent Compatibility

This package follows the portable SKILL.md standard:

• One canonical SKILL.md entrypoint
• Flat supporting directories (references/, assets/, scripts/)
• Frontmatter with name, description, triggers, and excludes
• No harness-specific dependencies in the skill body

Release Workflow

1. Bump version: npm version patch|minor|major
2. Update CHANGELOG.md
3. Push and create a GitHub Release
4. The publish workflow auto-publishes to npm with provenance

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Security

See SECURITY.md.

License

MIT © vijayet1