Write your first AI skill.

You are going to help me write one AI skill: a single page of instructions for
a job I hand an AI over and over, so it does that job my way every time
without me explaining it again.

A skill is not a description of my whole business and it is not a folder of
examples. It is one page that says what the job is, how to do it, and the
short list of rules that must always hold.

The mistake I want you to help me avoid is length. A skill loaded with
everything I know gets ignored in the middle. Ten rules an AI follows every
time beat ten pages it reads once. Every extra line you write pushes a rule
out.

Work in three stages and do not skip ahead. Do not write the skill until I
tell you to.

STAGE 1. INTERVIEW ME.

Ask ONE question at a time and wait for my answer before asking the next one.
Never send a list of questions. Keep every question short and in plain
English. If an answer is vague, ask one follow-up to get the specific version,
then move on. If I say "I don't know" or "skip", accept it and continue. Do
not lecture me, do not give me advice during the interview, and do not
summarise my answers back to me between questions.

Open with this exact question:

"Which job do you want to hand over? Describe it the way you would describe it
to somebody starting on Monday."

Then work through these areas, and ask enough in each to get real detail:

1. The job. What comes in, what goes out, and how often I do it.
2. A good one. Ask me to paste or describe one finished piece of work I was
   happy with. Then ask what made it good, and keep asking until I have given
   you reasons rather than adjectives.
3. A bad one. What a poor version looks like, and the last time an AI did this
   job badly for me. Ask what it got wrong, specifically.
4. The steps. What I do first, second and third when I do this job myself, and
   what I check before I call it finished.
5. The non-negotiables. What must always be true of the finished thing, and
   what must never appear in it. Words, claims, numbers, formats, anything.
6. What it needs from me. The facts, files or figures the AI has to have
   before it can start, and what it should do when one of them is missing.
7. The shape of the answer. How long, what format, and whether anything has a
   fixed order or fixed headings.

Stop asking the moment you have enough to write the rules. Do not go looking
for more.

STAGE 2. SHOW ME THE RULES, THEN STOP AND WAIT.

Write the rules out as a numbered list and show me nothing else yet. Take them
from what I told you, in my own words wherever I gave you good ones.

Then cut the list to ten at most, using these tests in order:

  If two rules say the same thing, merge them.
  If a rule would be true of decent work in any business, drop it. I want the
  ones that are specific to mine.
  If breaking a rule would not change the finished thing, drop it.
  If a rule needs a paragraph to explain it, it is not a rule yet. Rewrite it
  as one line or drop it.

Every surviving rule is one line, says one thing, and tells the AI what to do
or what never to do. No theory and no reasons.

Then ask me exactly this: "Are these the rules you would hold it to? Tell me
which ones to cut, reword or add."

Wait. Adjust them until I say they are right. Do not write the skill before I
say go.

STAGE 3. WRITE THE SKILL.

One page, in a single code block so I can copy the whole thing at once. Use
these headings and no others:

WHAT THIS SKILL DOES
One or two lines: the job, and the finished thing it produces.

WHEN TO USE IT
One or two lines, plain enough that the AI can tell whether the job in front
of it is this one.

WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE YOU START
The facts, files or figures to have in hand, and a line telling the AI to ask
me for anything missing rather than guess it.

HOW TO DO IT
My steps, in order, one line each. Five to eight of them.

THE RULES
The rules we agreed, numbered, one line each, ten at most.

BEFORE YOU HAND IT BACK
Three or four checks, written as questions the AI answers about its own draft.

RULES FOR WHAT YOU WRITE.

Do not invent anything. If it did not come from me, it does not go in. Write
in plain English with no jargon. Keep the whole thing to one page: if it runs
longer, cut the explanations rather than the rules. Where my answers were
thin, add a short list at the end titled "Still to fill in", naming the gaps
so I know what to go and find out.

When the skill is written, tell me in four short steps how to use it: save it
as its own file, paste it in at the start of any conversation where I want
that job done, read the first two or three results closely, and add a rule
only when something goes wrong. Tell me to delete a rule every time I add one,
so the page stays at ten.

Start now with your first question.