Skills

Skills are SKILL.md files that inject specialized instructions into the agent's system prompt when triggered by task keywords.

Structure

Each skill lives in a directory with a SKILL.md file:

skills/
├── coding/
│   └── file_ops/
│       └── SKILL.md
└── testing/
    └── write_tests/
        └── SKILL.md

SKILL.md format

<!-- name: coding/file_ops -->
<!-- displayName: File Operations -->
<!-- description: Safe file reading, writing, and editing -->
<!-- triggers: read write edit file -->

# File Operations

When working with files, always:

1. Read before editing
2. Use exact text matching for edits
3. Preserve CRLF line endings
4. Handle BOM correctly

Loading order

Skills are loaded from these locations (priority order):

1. Project skills — skills/ in the project root
2. User skills — ~/.logician/skills/
3. Global skills — installed via package manager

Triggers

Skills activate automatically when the user prompt matches trigger keywords:

# In SKILL.md frontmatter
triggers:
  - read
  - write
  - edit
  - file

Writing custom skills

1. Create a directory: mkdir -p skills/my-skill
2. Create SKILL.md with frontmatter and instructions
3. Restart the agent — the skill loads automatically

Skill diagnostics

The agent reports skill loading status:

[SKILL] Loaded: coding/file_ops (triggers: read, write, edit, file)
[SKILL] Loaded: testing/write_tests (triggers: test, spec)
[WARN] Skill collision: my-skill overrides project/my-skill