Verification skills

Core Purpose

• Skills automate repeated work and procedures across projects
• Primary use case: verify work automatically (e. g. , refactoring, code changes)

Skill Structure

• A skill is a folder containing:
• skill. md file (the main instruction)
• Name and description that triggers it
• The procedure itself
• Only descriptions load until a skill is actually needed (lazy loading)

Organizing Supporting Materials

• Keep skill. md lean and focused
• Add reference. md beside the skill for detailed material
• Link reference materials from the skill file
• Cloud reads reference files only when needed
• Cloud executes scripts in the folder rather than loading them

When to Use Each Instruction Surface

• **cloud. md**: conventions that apply all the time
• skills: procedures or reference materials tied to specific task kinds
• hooks: rules that Cloud must not skip (code that runs, not instructions Cloud follows)

Best Practices

• If you've typed the same multi-step instruction twice, make it a skill
• Start with verification skills (e. g. , test suite checks, diff validation)
• Check skills into version control so teams inherit the same procedures
• Examples: release checklists, migration recipes, code verification workflows

Takeaways

• Skills automate repeated procedures and primarily verify work across projects
• A skill is a folder with skill. md (main instruction) plus optional reference. md for detailed material that loads only when needed
• Use cloud. md for always-applicable conventions, skills for task-specific procedures, and hooks for non-negotiable rules
• If you've written the same multi-step instruction twice, convert it to a skill
• Check skills into version control so teams share the same procedures (release checklists, migrations, verification workflows)