Getting Started

Skills are composable instruction sets for AI agents. Each skill owns one domain and works alongside other skills without conflict.

What Are Skills?

A skill is a dense compression of expertise into instructions an AI can follow. Instead of one giant prompt that tries to do everything, you have focused skills that:

1. Own a domain — voice, density, craft, process, content
2. Compose cleanly — work together without breaking each other
3. Explain reasoning — teach the AI why, not just what

Installation

Clone the repo and drop the skills folder into your agent framework:

git clone https://github.com/IsNoobgrammer/skills-for-agents.git

Each skill is a self-contained folder with a SKILL.md file. Point your agent to load these files as system prompts.

Your First Skill

Let's use the caveman skill — ultra-terse communication that cuts token usage ~75%.

Invoke the Skill

/caveman full

What Happens

The AI now speaks in compressed mode:

Before caveman:

"Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is likely caused by a misconfiguration in your authentication middleware. Let me explain what's happening..."

After caveman:

"Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check use < not <=. Fix:"

Intensity Levels

Caveman has 4 levels:

Level	Reduction	Use When
lite	~30%	Light cleanup, keep readability
full	~50%	General compression, good balance
ultra	~75%	Maximum compression, telegraphic style

/caveman lite   # Professional but tight
/caveman full   # Classic caveman (default)
/caveman ultra  # Extreme abbreviation

Composing Skills

Skills work together. Here's how:

Layered Composition (Simultaneous)

Multiple skills apply to the same output at once:

/blog technical + /caveman lite

Result: Blogger writes a technical post, caveman compresses it. Both active simultaneously.

Pipeline Composition (Sequential)

One skill's output feeds into the next:

/postmortem → /compress

Result: Postmortem generates a report, compress shrinks it.

Natural Language

You don't always need explicit commands:

"Write a blog about the UI incident, make it terse"

The AI detects:

• "blog" → blogger skill (voice)
• "terse" → caveman skill (density)
• "UI incident" → postmortem skill (content)

All three compose automatically.

Domain Types

Every skill owns exactly one domain:

Domain	Controls	Example Skills
Voice	Tone, personality, vocabulary	Blogger
Density	Token count, verbosity	Caveman, Compress
Craft	Visual design, code quality	Painter, Harden
Process	Workflow steps, templates	Memory, Postmortem, Refactor
Content	Substance being produced	Documenter, Researcher

When skills from different domains compose, they don't conflict. When skills from the same domain compose, the most recent wins (or you can specify precedence).

Conflict Resolution

What happens when two skills want different things?

Example: Blogger wants 600-1200 words. Caveman wants minimal output.

Resolution: Caveman (density) wins. Blogger's voice and personality are preserved, but in fewer words.

Why? The SIP Framework defines precedence rules. Each skill declares what it yields to.

Next Steps

1. Learn SIP Framework — understand how skills compose
2. Explore Skills — see what's available
3. Create Your Own — build custom skills

Quick Reference

Invoke a Skill

/skill-name [options]

Compose Skills

/skill1 + /skill2           # Layered (simultaneous)
/skill1 → /skill2           # Pipeline (sequential)
"natural language request"  # Auto-detect

Stop a Skill

stop skill-name

List Active Skills

list skills

Common Patterns

Terse Technical Writing

/blog technical + /caveman lite

Production-Ready Code

/refactor → /harden

Comprehensive Docs

/documenter + /researcher

Incident Response

/postmortem → /compress

ML Research

/ml-engine + /researcher

Troubleshooting

Skill Not Triggering

Check the skill's description field in its frontmatter. It lists trigger phrases. If your request doesn't match, the skill won't activate.

Skills Conflicting

Check their domains. If both are voice or both are density, they'll conflict. Specify which one wins:

/skill1 (primary) + /skill2

Output Too Verbose

Add a density skill:

your-request + /caveman lite

Output Too Terse

Remove density skills or use stop caveman.

Best Practices

1. Start simple — use one skill at a time until you understand it
2. Compose gradually — add skills one by one, test each addition
3. Read the skill docs — each skill has specific commands and options
4. Use natural language — explicit commands are optional, natural requests work
5. Check domains — understand what each skill controls to avoid conflicts

Resources

• SIP Framework — composability rules
• Creating Skills — build your own
• Best Practices — advanced patterns
• GitHub — source code