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Replace the Superpowers plan pipeline with grill-with-docs, specs, local tickets, and ticket-native execution. BREAKING CHANGE: Remove the legacy Plan CLI, prompt templates, and Superpowers skills.
23 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
23 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
# Skill mechanics
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The skill-specific branch of [`writing-for-agents`](SKILL.md): what changes when the document is a skill — frontmatter, the invocation choice, and router skills. Everything else about writing it is the universal reference in `SKILL.md`.
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## Invocation
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Two choices, trading the two loads:
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- A **model-invoked** skill keeps a `description`, so the agent can fire it autonomously — and other skills can reach it. You can still type its name: model-invocation always _includes_ user reach; a description only ever adds agent discovery, never removes the human's. The description is the skill's top-level context pointer, forced to stay loaded at all times — permanent context load in exchange for discoverability. A model-invoked skill whose content is all reference is also one home for shared reference: another skill can invoke it, so reference needed by several skills lives in one place. Mechanics: omit `disable-model-invocation`, and write a model-facing description carrying the trigger branches (the pointer-writing rules in `SKILL.md` apply in full).
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- A **user-invoked** skill strips the description from the agent's reach: only the human typing its name can invoke it, and no other skill can. Zero context load, but it spends cognitive load — you are the index that must remember it exists. Mechanics: set `disable-model-invocation: true`; the `description` becomes human-facing — a one-line summary, trigger lists stripped.
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Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own, or another skill must. If it only ever fires by hand, make it user-invoked and pay no context load.
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Shared reference that two user-invoked skills both need can live in neither — with no descriptions, neither can fire the other. Push it to a plain file outside the skill system: external reference any skill can point at.
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## Splitting by invocation
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The invocation cut of splitting (the sequence cut lives in `SKILL.md`): split off a model-invoked skill when you have a distinct leading word that should trigger it on its own — a trigger word you actually use in your prompts — or another skill must reach it. You pay context load for the new always-loaded description, so that independent reach has to be worth it.
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## Router skills
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When user-invoked skills multiply past what you can remember, that piled-up cognitive load is cured by a **router skill**: one user-invoked skill that names the others and when to reach for each, so the human has one skill to remember instead of many. It can only hint, never fire them: user-invoked skills have no description, so nothing but the human can reach them.
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