Designing Reusable Skills
A skill is a reusable operating procedure. It should describe when to use it, exact steps, pitfalls, and verification checks.
When this matters
This page is for operators who want Rocky to produce usable work without turning the system into a mystery box. Use it when you need a practical path, a clear verification step, and a boundary between suggestion and action.
The operating pattern
- Capture trigger conditions. Say when the skill applies and when it does not.
- Write exact steps. Use commands, file paths, tools, and safety notes where known.
- Include pitfalls. Record failures that cost time once.
- Add verification. A skill should end with proof, not hope.
- Patch when stale. Skills become liabilities if nobody updates them.
Pre-flight checklist
- The workflow will recur
- Steps are specific enough to reuse
- Pitfalls are included
- Verification is defined
- It is not just task progress
Common failure modes
- Memory misuse: Procedures belong in skills, not always-on memory.
- Too vague: A skill that says “be careful” is not a workflow.
- Stale instructions: Patch skills immediately when they fail.
Verification
A page is not done because it was drafted. Verify the source, run the workflow, inspect the output, and record what changed. If a step touches money, customers, accounts, permissions, or private data, keep it behind an explicit human approval gate.