Skill Factory — The Meta-Skill for Making Skills

"The first industrial revolution was marked by using machines to make machines. Skill Factory is the machine that makes skills."

Purpose

Skill Factory provides a repeatable, human-AI collaborative SOP for going from a raw idea to a polished, publishable OpenClaw skill. It handles:

• 0→1: Rapid capture of fuzzy ideas → structured BRIEF → distilled skill
• 1→N: Iterating an existing skill with new sources or structural improvements
• N→∞: Publishing, versioning, ClawHub distribution, and ongoing maintenance

The key insight: this is not about capability, it's about workflow. Any Claw instance with this skill loaded can build production-quality skills — the process is the product.

How to Trigger This Skill

Just say something like:

New skill: [name], [1-2 sentences], [source URL (optional)]

Examples:

• New skill: prompt-engineering, best practices from Anthropic and OpenAI
• New skill: git-workflow, standardize my branching and PR flow, https://...
• Skill upgrade: nova-reader, add Semantic Scholar data source

Claw will immediately enter Phase 0 — no more information needed to start.

中文用户: 新 skill：[名字]，[1-2句说明]，[来源URL（可选）]

Four-Phase SOP

Phase 0 · Capture（≤5 min）

Goal: Lock down the spec before any work begins.

1. Save raw idea to inbox/<skill-name>.md
2. Ask exactly 3 questions — no more:
   • What is the target scenario / user?
   • Are there reference sources? (If not, Claw will search)
   • Publish scope: local-only / GitHub / ClawHub distribution?
3. Generate wip/<skill-name>/BRIEF.md

Key principle: Phase 0 prevents over-engineering (LRN-003). Don't start building until the 3 questions are answered.

Phase 1 · Collect（automated）

Goal: Gather raw material without processing.

1. web_fetch each source → save to wip/<skill-name>/raw/
2. If no sources provided, web_search for 2–3 high-quality references
3. Prioritize: official docs > primary blog posts > secondary analysis

Rule: At least 1 first-party source (official docs / original author's post). Raw content is saved as-is — no processing yet.

Phase 2 · Distill（core work）

Goal: Extract signal, discard noise.

1. Read all raw/ files
2. Write per skill-creator spec:
   • SKILL.md — triggers + workflow (≤200 lines)
   • references/ — detailed knowledge, split by topic
   • scripts/ — reusable code, only if needed
3. Mandatory verification (LRN-001): Re-fetch original source, diff against draft, check for gaps

Quality checklist:

• Trigger words are broad enough to cover all user phrasings
• SKILL.md has a clear "when to use" section
• Detail lives in references/, not bloating SKILL.md
• At least one mandatory re-read of primary source after distillation

Phase 3 · Publish

Goal: Clean, versioned, standalone repo ready for GitHub/ClawHub.

Repo Structure (Minimal)

<skill-name>/
├── SKILL.md          # Entry point (triggers + workflow)
├── README.md         # Human-facing intro — bilingual (EN + ZH)
├── CHANGELOG.md      # Version history
├── LICENSE           # MIT recommended
├── .gitignore
└── references/       # Knowledge base
    └── *.md

For script-heavy skills, add:

└── scripts/
    └── *.py

README Spec

A skill README must answer 3 questions in ≤60 seconds of reading:

1. What problem does it solve? (1-2 sentences, no jargon)
2. What makes it better than asking without it? (key differentiator)
3. How do I use it? (one concrete example)

Bilingual (EN + ZH): Use two separate files for maximum clarity.

README.md       # English only — no Chinese text anywhere
README_zh.md    # Chinese only — full detail, selling points, usage

Each file includes a badge linking to the other version. This allows GitHub to render clean language-specific views and enables future ClawHub to surface the right version per locale.

ClawHub Distribution

When the user wants to publish to ClawHub:

1. Ensure SKILL.md frontmatter has: name, version, description
2. description must contain broad trigger phrases covering multiple phrasings
3. LICENSE file present (MIT recommended)
4. Tag the release: git tag v1.0.0 && git push --tags

Sync to Local Workspace

After publishing, sync to ~/.workbuddy/skills/<skill-name>/ so Claw can use it immediately:

Copy-Item -Recurse -Force "D:\WorkBuddy\<skill-name>\*" "$env:USERPROFILE\.workbuddy\skills\<skill-name>\"

Version Management

Version semantics follow Semantic Versioning adapted for skills:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

What warrants a MAJOR bump?

A MAJOR version (e.g. 1.x → 2.0) signals a breaking change in the skill's mental model:

• The core SOP phases are restructured
• The skill's scope is fundamentally redefined
• Files are reorganized in ways that break the previous structure
• The activation paradigm changes (e.g. from "ask anything" to "four-phase SOP")

MAJOR ≠ more content. A skill that doubles its references but keeps the same structure is still a MINOR bump.

What warrants a MINOR bump?

A MINOR version (e.g. 1.0 → 1.1 → 1.2) signals additive improvements that don't break the existing pattern:

• New knowledge source added to references/
• New trigger words added to frontmatter
• New section added to SOP without restructuring existing phases
• README improvements, badge updates

Commit message convention

feat: add [source] to references        → MINOR
fix: correct [description]              → PATCH
refactor: restructure [component]       → could be MAJOR
release: v2.0.0 - [summary]            → tag release commits

Changelog discipline

Every release must update CHANGELOG.md with:

• Version number + date
• Summary sentence (1 line)
• Added / Changed / Fixed sections

Skill Iteration (1→N)

When upgrading an existing skill:

1. Create a new branch or directly update D:/WorkBuddy/<skill-name>/
2. Add new source to references/ with dated filename (source-YYYYMMDD.md)
3. Update SKILL.md version field and trigger words if needed
4. Update CHANGELOG.md
5. Bump version (MAJOR / MINOR / PATCH per rules above)
6. Commit with semantic message
7. Re-sync to local workspace

Upgrade triggers: User sends new URL, user says "skill has a gap", Claw detects missing knowledge during a task execution.

Workspace Layout

D:/WorkBuddy/
├── .workspace-index.md      # Master skill status board
├── skill-factory/           # This meta-skill repo
│   ├── SKILL.md             # This file
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── CHANGELOG.md
│   ├── LICENSE
│   ├── .gitignore
│   ├── inbox/               # Raw ideas drop zone
│   └── wip/                 # Active work-in-progress
│       └── <skill-name>/
│           ├── BRIEF.md
│           ├── raw/
│           └── draft/
│
├── harness/                 # ✅ v1.2.0 — ready for GitHub
├── nova-reader/             # ✅ v1.1.0 — ready for GitHub
└── <future-skills>/

Lessons Learned (from .learnings)