Is the Skill Design Guide skill free?

Yes. The skill itself is free from metaskills/skill-design-guide. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.

What is the Skill Design Guide SkillProof Score?

8.8/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 8/10, docs & honesty 4/5.

How do I install Skill Design Guide?

Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.

Can I use Skill Design Guide with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?

The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.

Skill Design Guide

Walks step-by-step through defining, writing, testing, and shipping a Claude Skill, with the real platform constraints baked in.

by metaskills · metaskills/skill-design-guide

Tested · Works

Install — copy the command Download source ↗

Test report

Verdict: Tested · Works
Score: 8.8/10
Tested: Jul 16, 2026
Environment: Claude Code 2.x (agent harness)
Upstream re-checked: Jul 18, 2026 · f05b350

Drafting a 'bug spreadsheet to GitHub issues' skill, the guide's process caught concrete platform gotchas a quick draft misses — non-kebab-case name, a description with no trigger phrases and no negative-trigger boundary, no folder-structure or testing plan — the kind of skill that would upload but silently under-trigger.

Scored on four weighted criteria — install, triggering, output vs. baseline, docs. How scoring works

Installs cleanly 5/5
Triggers reliably 5/5
Output vs. baseline 8/10
Docs & honesty 4/5

What Skill Design Guide does

An interactive meta-skill: it guides the user through the full Claude Skill authoring lifecycle (use cases, kebab-case folder naming, YAML frontmatter rules, description structure, design patterns, trigger/functional/performance testing, iteration signals, and distribution) instead of producing a skill in one shot. Triggers on 'create a skill', 'build a skill', 'write a SKILL.md', 'design a workflow skill', or questions about frontmatter, trigger phrases, or skill best practices.

How to install Skill Design Guide

git clone https://github.com/metaskills/skill-design-guide.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r skill-design-guide ~/.claude/skills/skill-design-guide

Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ (per-project). Restart Claude Code after installing.

Commands — how to trigger Skill Design Guide

/skill-design-guide Walks step-by-step through defining, writing, testing, and shipping a Claude Skill, with the real platform constraints baked in.

It also activates on plain-language prompts like these:

Walk me through building a skill that turns bugs into GitHub issues
Help me design and test a brand new Claude skill step by step
Guide me through writing frontmatter and triggers for my first skill

Frequently asked questions

Is the Skill Design Guide skill free?: Yes. The skill itself is free from metaskills/skill-design-guide. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.
Does Skill Design Guide work with Claude Code?: We tested it with Claude Code 2.x (agent harness) on Jul 16, 2026. Verdict: Tested · Works. Drafting a 'bug spreadsheet to GitHub issues' skill, the guide's process caught concrete platform gotchas a quick draft misses — non-kebab-case name, a description with no trigger phrases and no negative-trigger boundary, no folder-structure or testing plan — the kind of skill that would upload but silently under-trigger.
What is the Skill Design Guide SkillProof Score?: 8.8/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 8/10, docs & honesty 4/5.
How do I install Skill Design Guide?: Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.
Can I use Skill Design Guide with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?: The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.