Agent skill · practicalswan
writing-for-agents
Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.
What it needs
About 9k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Reference for writing any document an agent consumes: a skill, an AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md, a doc reached by a pointer. The packaging differs; the writing does not: the same levers make each one predictable, since the agent takes the same process every run rather than producing the same output. When the document you're writing is a skill, read SKILL-MECHANICS.md for frontmatter, invocation choice, and router skills. Context pointers A context pointer is a reference held in the agent's context that names some out-of-context material and encodes the condition for reaching it. A skill's description is one; a line in AGENTS.md naming a doc is the same object. The pointer's wording, not its target, decides when the agent reaches the material, and how reliably. A must-have target behind a weakly worded pointer is a variance bug: sharpen the wording first, and inline the material only if sharpening fails. A pointer does two jobs: state what the material is, and list the branches that should trigger reaching it (a branch is a distinct case the document handles, so different runs take different paths through it). Every word of an always-loaded pointer costs on every turn, so it earns even harder pruning than the body: Front-load the leading word: the pointer is where it does its triggering work. One trigger per branch. Synonyms that rename a single branch are one branch written twice; collapse them and keep only genuinely distinct branches. Cut identity the body already carries. The two loads Every document and pointer you add spends one of two budgets: Context load is the cost of always-loaded material on the agent's window: an AGENTS.md line, a skill description, anything sitting in context every turn, spending tokens and attention whether or not it fires. Cognitive load is the cost on the human: which documents exist and when to reach for each. The human is the index. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills practicalswan/writing-for-agents