Files
our-claude-skills/reference/SKILL-FORMAT-REQUIREMENTS.md
Andrew Yim d1cd1298a8 feat(reference-curator): Add pipeline orchestrator and refactor skill format
Pipeline Orchestrator:
- Add 07-pipeline-orchestrator skill with code/CLAUDE.md and desktop/SKILL.md
- Add /reference-curator-pipeline slash command for full workflow automation
- Add pipeline_runs and pipeline_iteration_tracker tables to schema.sql
- Add v_pipeline_status and v_pipeline_iterations views
- Add pipeline_config.yaml configuration template
- Update AGENTS.md with Reference Curator Skills section
- Update claude-project files with pipeline documentation

Skill Format Refactoring:
- Extract YAML frontmatter from SKILL.md files to separate skill.yaml
- Add tools/ directories with MCP tool documentation
- Update SKILL-FORMAT-REQUIREMENTS.md with new structure
- Add migrate-skill-structure.py script for format conversion

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-01-29 01:01:02 +07:00

4.0 KiB

Claude Skills - Format Requirements

Overview

This document describes the format requirements for Claude Skills in this repository. Skills support dual-platform development (Claude Code and Claude Desktop) with separated concerns.

For Claude Desktop skills, metadata is stored in a separate skill.yaml file:

skill-name/
└── desktop/
    ├── skill.yaml           # Metadata (name, description, allowed-tools, license)
    ├── SKILL.md             # Content only (no frontmatter)
    ├── tools/               # MCP tool documentation
    │   ├── firecrawl.md         # Tool-specific docs
    │   └── notion.md
    ├── references/          # Guidance docs
    └── examples/            # Usage examples

skill.yaml Format

# Required fields
name: skill-name-here
description: Brief description of what the skill does and trigger keywords

# Optional fields
allowed-tools:
  - mcp__firecrawl__*
  - mcp__notion__*
  - Read
  - Write
  - Edit
  - Bash
  - Glob
  - Grep
  - WebFetch

license: MIT  # or Internal-use Only

triggers:
  - keyword1
  - keyword2

SKILL.md Content

With metadata separated into skill.yaml, SKILL.md contains only the skill directive:

# Skill Name

Purpose and overview...

## Workflow

Step-by-step instructions...

## MCP Tool Usage

Tool-specific guidance...

tools/ Directory

Document MCP tools used by the skill:

File Purpose
firecrawl.md Firecrawl MCP tool usage
notion.md Notion MCP tool usage
perplexity.md Perplexity MCP tool usage
chrome-devtools.md Chrome DevTools MCP tool usage
claude-core.md Claude core tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep)
webfetch.md WebFetch tool usage

Code Skill Structure

For Claude Code skills:

skill-name/
└── code/
    ├── CLAUDE.md            # Action-oriented directive
    ├── scripts/             # Executable Python/Bash scripts
    └── references/          # Documentation

Key Requirements

1. Metadata (skill.yaml)

  • name: Required, lowercase with hyphens
  • description: Required, include trigger keywords
  • allowed-tools: Optional, list of permitted tools
  • license: Optional, MIT or Internal-use Only

2. File Structure

  • All files must be inside the skill folder
  • Desktop version in desktop/ subdirectory
  • Code version in code/ subdirectory
  • Subfolders (tools/, references/, examples/) are allowed

3. Naming Conventions

  • Use lowercase with hyphens for skill name
  • No spaces or special characters in folder/file names
  • Skill numbers are two-digit prefixes (00-99)

Full Directory Structure

XX-skill-name/
├── code/                    # Claude Code version
│   ├── CLAUDE.md            # Action-oriented directive
│   ├── scripts/             # Executable Python/Bash
│   └── references/          # Documentation
│
├── desktop/                 # Claude Desktop version
│   ├── skill.yaml           # Metadata
│   ├── SKILL.md             # Content only
│   ├── tools/               # MCP tool documentation
│   ├── references/          # Guidance docs
│   └── examples/            # Usage examples
│
└── README.md                # Overview (optional)

Migration Script

To migrate existing SKILL.md files with frontmatter to the new structure:

python scripts/migrate-skill-structure.py --dry-run   # Preview
python scripts/migrate-skill-structure.py             # Execute

The script:

  1. Extracts YAML frontmatter to skill.yaml
  2. Strips frontmatter from SKILL.md
  3. Creates tools/ directory
  4. Generates tool stub files based on allowed-tools

Legacy Format (Deprecated)

The old format with frontmatter embedded in SKILL.md is deprecated:

---
name: skill-name
description: Description
allowed-tools: mcp__firecrawl__*, Read, Write
---

# Skill content...

Use the migration script to convert to the new format.