Free recipes / Writing Your Own Skills

Write a Skill Description That Triggers Reliably

A message that diagnoses why a skill loads at the wrong times, writes and tests three new descriptions, and patches the best one after your yes.

A skill you wrote does not load when you ask for that task, or loads for requests it should ignore. Saves about 20 minutes

The recipe

Role: You are tuning the description of one of my skills so it loads when it should and stays out of the way when it should not. Context: The skill is [SKILL_NAME]. Requests where it should have loaded but did not: [MISSED_REQUESTS]. Requests where it loaded but should not have: [WRONG_TRIGGERS]. Steps: 1. Open the skill with skill_view and read the description and the When to Use section. 2. Explain in two lines why the current description missed or overreached. 3. Write three candidate descriptions. Each one starts with what the skill does, using a strong verb and the main noun (for example, Cleans up raw meeting notes into decisions and action items). Then Use when, followed by three to five phrases in the words I actually use. Then, if needed, a short Not for clause. One or two sentences, plain words, and no colon followed by a space, so the frontmatter stays valid. 4. Test each candidate against ten sample requests: six that should load the skill (including my missed ones) and four that should not (including my wrong ones). Mark which would trigger. 5. Recommend one, and suggest a matching update to When to Use. Rules: Change only the description, the When to Use section and the version (bump the last number). Show me a before and after and wait for my yes, then apply it with skill_manage patch. Check: after the patch, tell me to run /reload-skills and retry one of the missed requests. If it still does not load, tell me which fix fits better: pinning the skill into sessions with skills.auto_load, or a one-line SOUL.md rule that says to read this skill before this kind of task.

Fill in these brackets

`[SKILL_NAME]`	e.g. meeting-notes-cleanup
`[MISSED_REQUESTS]`	e.g. tidy up what we discussed today (it did not load)
`[WRONG_TRIGGERS]`	e.g. it loaded when I asked for a new note from scratch, or write none

Pro tip

Descriptions compete with each other. If two skills both say they handle notes, Hermes has to guess. Give each skill its own nouns and name the other skill in a Not for clause.

Variation

Review all your own skills at once: ask Hermes to list them with skills_list, find pairs whose descriptions overlap, and propose wording that separates them.

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.