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Skills extend the agent with new behaviors that load on demand. DocWriter uses the Claude Agent SDK’s standard skills mechanism, so anything that works as a skill in Claude Code or the Agent SDK works in DocWriter. A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file. The frontmatter declares when the skill should fire (a description Claude reads to decide relevance); the body is the instructions the agent follows when the skill activates. For the full format, examples, and progressive-loading semantics, see the SDK reference:

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Where DocWriter looks

The agent loads skills from two places:
  • Bundled skills. DocWriter ships a small set of skills aimed at writing workflows. Today there is one: hooks-creator, which lets the agent propose a hook from natural language (e.g. you say “run pdflatex after every Edit”; it proposes the hook for you to accept). Bundled skills live in src/lib/server/skills/ in the DocWriter repo and are loaded automatically.
  • Project skills. Anything in .claude/skills/ inside your workspace is loaded as well. This is where you put skills specific to a project (e.g. a bibliography-checker skill for a paper, a chapter-template skill for a book).

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Writing your own

Create a directory under .claude/skills/ in your workspace, add a SKILL.md, and the agent will pick it up on its next session. The description in the frontmatter is what Claude uses to decide when the skill is relevant; write it specifically and concretely. The bundled hooks-creator skill is a small worked example. See src/lib/server/skills/hooks-creator/SKILL.md in the DocWriter repo.

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When to use a skill versus a rule

Writing rules and skills overlap. The rough distinction:
  • A rule is short, declarative, and applies all the time (e.g. “avoid passive voice”). It is included in every agent turn’s system prompt.
  • A skill is longer, situational, and loads only when relevant. Good for procedures with multiple steps, or for behaviors that only matter in specific contexts.
When in doubt, start with a rule. If the rule grows past a paragraph or needs branching logic, promote it to a skill.