skill-authoringlisted

# Skill Authoring for Weaker Models Institutional files are read by a model with zero context and less judgment than the author. Write for that reader. Every rule must survive being followed literally, without the author present. ## 1. The executable-rule format An abstract demand ("keep quality high", "be careful", "verify appropriately") without a judgment criterion is noise — it costs context and changes nothing. Every load-bearing rule states: - **Trigger** — the observable condition under which it applies. - **Steps** — what to actually do, imperative, copy-pasteable where possible. - **Done** — the completion definition; how the follower knows it worked. And where misreading is costly or the judgment boundary is subtle, add: - **One positive and one negative example** — the fastest way to transmit a judgment boundary to a weaker model. The strongest negative example quotes a rationalization actually observed ("tests are probably fine — the change is small") and names why it fails. - **On failure** — the next step when it does not work (retry differently, escalate, mark unresolved), so failure does not improvise. Placement is part of the format: **an eligibility or refusal hard-exit gate precedes the first artifact-producing step, not mid-procedure.** A refusal or scope check positioned after generation has begun gets blown past by mid-build momentum — the executor already has an artifact to protect and reads the gate as an obstacle. The same check asked f