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Skill Development Cycle

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Goal

Turn every repeating task into a durable, automated skill so that if you ask twice, it should already be running on a cron.

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What the User Gets

Without this: ad-hoc work that the agent forgets how to do. You ask “enrich this person” and the agent invents a new process each time. Quality varies. With this: every capability is codified, tested, and scheduled. Enrichment runs the same way every time. New patterns get skill-ified within a day.

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Implementation

The Rule: If you have to ask your agent for something twice, it should already be a skill running on a cron. First time is discovery. Second time is system failure.

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The 5-Step Cycle

Step 1: Concept the Process. Describe what needs to happen in plain language:
  • What’s the input? What’s the output? What triggers it?
  • What data sources does it touch?
  • How often should it run?
Step 2: Run Manually for 3-10 Items. Actually do the work by hand on a small batch. This is the prototype phase. Do NOT write a SKILL.md yet. Just do the work and observe:
  • What does the output actually look like?
  • What edge cases appear?
  • What quality bar is right?
Step 3: Evaluate Output. Show the user the results. Get feedback.
  • Does output look good? Is quality right?
  • Did you miss anything? Over-engineer?
  • Revise the process based on what you learned.
Step 4: Codify into a Skill. Write the SKILL.md. Either:
  • New skill — genuinely new capability
  • Add to existing skill — variation of something that exists (parameterize it)
The skill must be:
  • Durable — works tomorrow, next week, next month without manual intervention
  • MECE — doesn’t overlap with other skills (see below)
  • Parameterized — handles variations through parameters, not separate skills
Step 5: Add to Cron (if recurring). If the process should run automatically:
  • Add to existing cron job if it fits naturally
  • Create new cron job if it has a distinct scheduling concern
  • Monitor the first 2-3 automated runs for quality
  • Fix issues that emerge at scale

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MECE Discipline

Skills should be Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive:
  • Each entity type has exactly ONE owner skill
  • Each signal source has exactly ONE owner skill
  • Two skills creating the same brain page = MECE violation
Example ownership (no overlap):

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Quality Bar Checklist

A skill is ready when:
  • Ran successfully on 3-10 real items with good output
  • User reviewed output and approved
  • SKILL.md is under 500 lines (use references for overflow)
  • Checks notability before creating brain pages (don’t create pages for nobodies)
  • Has citation enforcement (every fact has a source)
  • Doesn’t overlap with existing skills (MECE)
  • If recurring: on a cron with appropriate schedule
  • If it creates brain pages: checks notability first

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What This Means in Practice

  • Don’t do ad-hoc brain enrichment, use the enrich skill
  • Don’t manually check social media, use an automated cron
  • Don’t manually ingest meeting notes, use the meeting-sync recipe
  • Don’t manually create entity pages, use the entity detector
  • If a new pattern emerges, prototype it, skill-ify it, cron-ify it

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Tricky Spots

  1. MECE violations compound silently. Two skills that both create brain/people/ pages will produce duplicates and conflicting data. Before creating a new skill, check the ownership table. If an existing skill already owns that entity type, extend it with parameters instead of creating a new skill.
  2. The quality bar is real. Don’t ship a skill that hasn’t been tested on 3-10 real items with user approval. A skill that produces bad output is worse than no skill — it creates bad brain pages at scale on a cron.
  3. Don’t create stubs. A SKILL.md with “TODO: implement” is not a skill. Every skill must be complete enough to run end-to-end on real data. If you can’t finish it, don’t create the file. Keep it as manual work until you can do it right.

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How to Verify

  1. Run the skill on 3 real items. Execute the skill against live data (not test data). Check that the output matches the quality bar: citations present, notability checked, no stubs created.
  2. Check MECE against existing skills. Review the ownership table. Does this new skill create pages in a directory already owned by another skill? If yes, it’s a MECE violation. Merge or parameterize instead.
  3. Verify the quality bar checklist. Walk through every item in the Quality Bar Checklist above. If any item is unchecked, the skill isn’t ready for cron deployment.
Part of the ModusBrain Skillpack.