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Bare `/skill`-style prose ("run the `/grilling` skill") relies on the model
reading a slash-prefixed name as a command to fire. Naming the tool directly
gets a higher hit rate, and it's actually more harness-neutral than the old
convention since it drops the Claude-Code-specific `/` trigger syntax
entirely rather than assuming it. Updates the documented convention in
.agents/invocation.md and every operative cross-skill invocation site in
skills/**/SKILL.md to match.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
23 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
23 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
# Model-invoked vs user-invoked
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Every `SKILL.md` in this repo is a skill. The one axis that splits them is **invocation** — who can reach it:
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- **User-invoked** — reachable **only by the human typing its name**. Set `disable-model-invocation: true` in the frontmatter (Claude Code) and `policy.allow_implicit_invocation: false` in `agents/openai.yaml` (Codex). The `description` is **human-facing**: a one-line summary read by a person browsing slash-commands. Strip trigger lists ("Use when the user says…").
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- **Model-invoked** — reachable by **model or user**. The default: omit `disable-model-invocation` and the `policy` block from `agents/openai.yaml`. The `description` is **model-facing** and keeps rich trigger phrasing ("Use when the user wants…, mentions…, asks for…") so auto-invocation fires. The test for whether a skill should stay model-invoked: _could the model usefully reach for this autonomously?_ (Reuse is the reason to extract a skill, not the test.)
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Each harness excludes a user-invoked skill from the model's reach in its own way, so nothing but the human can fire it — no other skill can. A user-invoked skill may invoke model-invoked skills, but it can never reach another user-invoked skill.
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Every skill also carries an `agents/openai.yaml` beside its `SKILL.md`. It holds Codex UI metadata — `interface.display_name` and `interface.short_description` for the skill picker — and, for user-invoked skills, the `policy.allow_implicit_invocation: false` that pairs with `disable-model-invocation`. Keep the two in sync: a skill is user-invoked in both harnesses or neither.
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Bucket `README.md`s and the top-level `README.md` group entries into **User-invoked** and **Model-invoked**.
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## Dependencies between them
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Dependencies are expressed as an explicit instruction to **call the Skill tool** for the named skill ("Call the Skill tool for `grilling`"), not deep `../other-skill/FILE.md` cross-references, and not a bare `/skill`-style mention left for the model to interpret. Naming the tool is what gets it fired: most harnesses expose skill invocation as a tool the model calls, and spelling that out gets a higher hit rate than dropping a `/name` into prose and hoping it's read as a command. Dropping the leading `/` also keeps this harness-neutral rather than less — a skill name on its own carries no assumption about which harness's trigger syntax it belongs to. Shared reference docs live inside the skill that owns them; other skills reach that material by calling the Skill tool for it, not by linking across folders.
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This is about **operative** instructions — a skill's own steps telling the agent to go run another skill right now. Router prose that just names skills for a human to pick from (`ask-matt`, bucket `README.md`s) isn't invoking anything, so it keeps `/skill`-style names as plain labels.
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## Passive vs active domain work
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Merely _reading_ `CONTEXT.md` for vocabulary is a one-line prose pointer, not the `domain-modeling` skill. Only the active build/sharpen discipline (challenge terms, edge-case scenarios, write ADRs, update `CONTEXT.md` inline) is `domain-modeling`.
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