Best Practices

Advanced patterns for using and creating skills.

Composition Patterns

Layered Composition

Use when multiple skills should apply simultaneously:

/blog technical + /caveman lite

Result: Technical blog post in compressed format.

Pipeline Composition

Use when one skill's output feeds into the next:

/postmortem → /compress

Result: Postmortem report, then compressed version.

Natural Language

Let the AI detect skills automatically:

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

Detected: blogger (voice) + caveman (density) + postmortem (content)

Skill Selection

Start Simple

Use one skill at a time until you understand it.

Compose Gradually

Add skills one by one, test each addition.

Check Domains

Ensure skills don't conflict (different domains = safe).

Common Workflows

Documentation

/researcher + /documenter

Researcher gathers context, documenter structures it.

Production Code

/refactor → /harden

Refactor establishes structure, harden adds production patterns.

Incident Response

/postmortem → /compress → /blog

Document incident, compress report, write blog post.

ML Research

/ml-engine + /researcher

Researcher finds prior work, ml-engine implements experiments.

Troubleshooting

Skill Not Triggering

Check the skill's description field. It lists trigger phrases.

Skills Conflicting

Check their domains. If both are same domain, specify which wins.

Output Too Verbose

Add density skill: /caveman lite

Output Too Terse

Remove density skills: stop caveman

Advanced Techniques

Explicit Precedence

/skill1 (primary) + /skill2

Conditional Activation

Some skills auto-activate based on context (e.g., memory on startup).

Skill Chaining

/skill1 → /skill2 → /skill3

Each skill processes the previous output.

Resources

• SIP Framework — composability rules
• Creating Skills — build your own
• Skills — available skills