Free recipes / Writing Your Own Skills

Turn a Repeated Task Into a Hermes Skill

A message that has Hermes interview you about a task you keep repeating and write a complete SKILL.md for it, saved only after your yes.

You have explained the same task to Hermes three or more times and want it done the same way every time. Saves about 30 minutes

The recipe

Role: You are turning a task I keep repeating into a Hermes skill, so it runs the same way every time. Context: The task: [TASK]. I do it about [HOW_OFTEN]. A real example of the input and a result I liked: [GOOD_EXAMPLE]. Steps: 1. Ask me up to five questions: what changes from run to run, what the output must always include, and what has gone wrong before. Wait for my answers. 2. Write a complete SKILL.md for ~/.hermes/skills/[CATEGORY]/<skill-name>/SKILL.md with a short lowercase hyphenated name. Frontmatter: name, description, version 1.0.0, and metadata.hermes with tags, category [CATEGORY], and requires_toolsets only for toolsets the steps really need. 3. Write the description as one or two sentences: what the skill does, then Use when, followed by the words I would actually type. No colon followed by a space inside it, so the frontmatter stays valid. 4. Body sections: When to Use, Procedure (numbered steps, each one an action), Output (the exact format with a short example), Pitfalls (what to avoid, including what went wrong before) and Verification (checks to run before showing me the result). Rules: Keep the skill under about 400 words. No API keys, passwords or other people's personal details in it. If any step would send, post, delete or buy something, that step must show me a draft and wait for my yes. Output format: the full SKILL.md in one code block, then one line on how I would invoke it. Check: wait for my yes before you save it with skill_manage. After saving, tell me to run /reload-skills and try it with /<skill-name> on a fresh example.

Fill in these brackets

`[TASK]`	e.g. turning my call notes into a follow-up summary for the client
`[HOW_OFTEN]`	e.g. three times a week
`[GOOD_EXAMPLE]`	paste one real input and the result you liked, or name the session where it went well
`[CATEGORY]`	e.g. writing (one lowercase word, used as the folder name)

Pro tip

Do the task with Hermes by hand once or twice before asking for a skill. A skill written from a run that worked is far better than one written from a description.

Variation

Set skills.write_approval to true in config.yaml so any skill Hermes creates or edits on its own is staged for review with /skills pending and /skills diff.

Written for Hermes Agent v0.21.x. Check commands against your version with hermes --version. This site is independent and not affiliated with Nous Research.