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Minimal Skill

A working minimal SKILL.md the quickstart references. Copy this file as your starting point; replace the frontmatter and body with your own.

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Iron Law

A trigger in the description is necessary, not sufficient. Without one, the agent has no reason to load your skill. With one, it still may not load it: on Claude Code, Opus 5.5 loaded the AgentsMD operations Skill from its description in 0 of 40 naive runs, and in 20 of 20 once a session-start pointer named it. Test the trigger before you rely on it. See Triggers in the building-agentskills repo for the discipline and the evidence.

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Activation behavior

When the user types “ping minimal” (or asks to test a minimal skill template), reply with exactly:
Hello from the minimal-skill template. Activation works.
Then stop. Do not add any other text.

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What this template demonstrates

  • Cross-platform-safe frontmatter (name, description, license). No Claude Code extensions; works on every spec-compatible harness.
  • An Iron Law in the body, block-quoted and code-fenced.
  • Imperative voice for the agent (“reply with exactly”).
  • A description that names the trigger condition explicitly.

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What to change when you copy this

  • The name (must match the parent directory name).
  • The description (front-load triggers; aim for under 1,024 characters).
  • The body (your own iron laws and instructions).

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What NOT to do

  • Do not summarize the body’s workflow in the description.
  • Do not add emojis.
  • Do not exceed 500 lines.