make-me-a-skill

# Make Me a Skill

The biggest leverage in working with AI is turning your repeated tasks into reusable skills — so formatting the meeting notes, writing the weekly update, or organizing the tasks becomes "do the thing" instead of re-explaining it every time. This captures one such task into a clean, reusable skill or prompt you can invoke by name, and shows you how to save and improve it. Do it once and you'll do it for everything.

## What This Skill Produces

- **The captured task** — the repetitive thing, spelled out: what it takes in, the steps it follows, and what a good result looks like
- **A reusable skill/prompt** — a clean, named artifact you can invoke ("do my weekly update") instead of re-explaining
- **The output template** — the consistent format the skill should produce each time
- **Save & invoke guidance** — where to keep it (a skill file, a saved prompt, a snippet) and how to trigger it
- **A refine loop** — how to improve it as you use it (the first version is never the last)

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The repetitive task** — the thing you do regularly and re-explain each time
- **A good example** — one instance of the task done well (the target output)
- **The inputs it needs** — what information you feed it each time
- **Where you'll use it** — Claude Code, a chat, a specific tool (shapes the format)

## Framework: Capture, Templatize, Reuse

1. **Pick one repeated task.** Start with a single weekly thing — the highest-frequency, most-annoying-to-re-explain one.
2. **Extract the spec.** From how you currently do it (and a good example), capture the inputs, the steps, and what "good" looks like — the reusable essence.
3. **Write the invocable artifact.** Turn it into a named skill or prompt with a clear trigger, required inputs, and an output template — so next time it's one instruction.
4. **Fit the tool.** Format it for where it'll live (a SKILL.md, a saved prompt, a text snippet) and note how to invoke it.
5. **Refine as you go.** Treat v1 as a draft — each use surfaces a tweak. And once one exists, the pattern generalizes to your other repeated tasks.

## Output Format

### Skill: [name] — for [the repetitive task]

**What it does:** [one line].
**Inputs it needs:** [the info you feed it].
**The skill/prompt (reusable):**
> [The invocable instruction — trigger, steps, and the output template it should follow.]

**Save it as:** [SKILL.md / saved prompt / snippet], invoke with "[trigger phrase]".
**Refine it:** each time you use it, tweak the part that wasn't quite right. Then make one for your next repeated task.

## Quality Checks
- [ ] Captures a genuinely repeated task's inputs, steps, and good-output
- [ ] Produces a reusable, invocable skill/prompt with a clear trigger
- [ ] Includes a consistent output template
- [ ] Gives concrete save-and-invoke guidance for the person's tool
- [ ] Includes a refine loop and the generalize-to-others nudge

## Anti-Patterns
- **A one-off answer** instead of a reusable artifact.
- **Capturing a vague task** with no clear inputs or output.
- **No trigger/invocation** guidance.
- **Treating v1 as final** with no refine loop.

## Example Trigger Phrases
- "I format meeting notes the same way every week — make me a skill for it."
- "Turn my weekly status update into a reusable prompt."
- "Help me create a template skill for organizing my tasks."
- "I keep re-explaining this to AI — capture it as a skill."
- "Make a 'do this' skill out of my monthly report process."

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