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Defame1297 edcc57c0d6 docs: trim skill READMEs and ADR/changelog narration

Two related simplification-audit findings, bundled because they edit
some of the same skill-audit files and splitting would fragment
single-file diffs.

Finding 10: delete 48 per-skill/reference README.md files (they
restated SKILL.md in narrative form and no agent ever loads them) plus
2 scaffold templates. Drop the README criterion from skill-audit's
file-structure.md and finding-criteria.md, and the README-generation
step from skill-author's new-skill.sh; update new-skill.bats to match.
Plugin-root READMEs are kept intentionally, out of scope.

Finding 12: strip historical ADR-0020/ADR-0023 citations and
changelog-style narration from model-facing skill content across
kyberforge and git plugin skills. Delete skill-author's one-time
retrofit.md migration guide and its references. Some ADR-0023 tags
were not narration but check-rtk-prefix's required opt-out marker for
intentionally-bare git commands -- those were restored, not stripped.

Mirror re-synced and full pre-commit/pre-push suite verified green.

Refs: SIMPLIFICATION-AUDIT.md findings 10, 12

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YR2CjVumUbEGWcMikcoXBD

2026-09-12 18:38:09 +00:00

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source_keys

agentskills-best-practices

agentskills-evaluating-skills

agentskills-optimizing-descriptions

Improving an existing skill

Return to SKILL.md Step 4 once Step 4 below is done — validation, versioning and commit verification are shared with the create flow and are not repeated here.

Step 1 — Verify inputs

Confirm the skill directory path exists and that at least one improvement signal is present in the conversation or a referenced file.

If the skill directory is missing, ask for it. If no signals are present, stop: "This skill applies existing signals to a skill. For a blind review without signals, use /skill-audit instead."

Signals can come from anywhere in the conversation or referenced files:

Grill session output (most common predecessor in the factory sequence)
/skill-audit findings (PASS/FAIL/SUGGESTION punch list)
Human feedback (feedback.json, inline in conversation, PR or issue comments)
Session context describing what went wrong

Also verify the name field in frontmatter matches the skill's directory name exactly.

Step 2 — Gather and group signals

Read the current skill files (SKILL.md and any files in scripts/, references/, assets/, tests/). Then collect all signals from the conversation and any file paths the user has referenced.

Group signals by root cause, not symptom. Patching per symptom is the default failure mode: three eval failures may all trace to one missing instruction. Ask: "What single gap in the skill causes this cluster of failures?" One root cause → one fix. Do not make a separate edit for each symptom.

Example:
- Session context: output format is wrong on every run
- Audit finding: no output template defined
- User feedback: "I always have to ask it to format the output"
→ Root cause: SKILL.md has no output format specification → one fix: add an output template

Step 3 — Announce planned changes

Before editing, state:

Which root causes were identified and what evidence supports each
Which files will be changed and what will change in each

Then proceed — edits are reversible via git, no approval checkpoint needed.

Step 4 — Apply changes

Edit any file in the skill directory that the signals point to: SKILL.md, scripts/, references/, assets/, tests/, README.md.

Generalize, do not patch. Find the underlying gap, not the specific example that failed. A fix scoped only to the test cases you have seen will overfit and perform worse on new inputs.

Keep it lean. Remove instructions that are not pulling their weight. For every sentence you add, ask: "Would the agent get this wrong without it?" A shorter, focused skill consistently outperforms an exhaustive one.

Explain the why. Reasoning-based instructions outperform rigid directives. If you find yourself writing a rule in all caps (ALWAYS/NEVER), reframe it: explain why the behavior matters so the agent can apply judgment in edge cases.

Retrofit before extending. Any edit to a skill that does not meet the contract has to bring it into compliance first — the gates are hot and carry no baseline file, so a one-line fix to a non-compliant skill cannot be committed until the description and body meet references/contract.md. Treat that retrofit as part of the same change, not a follow-up.

If a signal points to a script or reference file, edit that file directly rather than adding a workaround in SKILL.md.

A skill carrying no metadata.version is seeded at "1.0.0", not bumped — SKILL.md Step 4's patch bump presumes a version to bump, and ADR-0022 reserves "0.1.0" for a newly created skill.

Check for regressions before handing back. SKILL.md Step 4 tells you to resolve every FAIL, which says nothing about a check that passed before these edits and no longer does. Compare the closing audit against the skill's pre-edit state — a PASS that has become a SUGGESTION, or a SUGGESTION that has become a FAIL, is damage this flow caused and is in scope for it. Only the improve flow can make that comparison; the create flow has no prior state to compare against.

Then return to SKILL.md Step 4.

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