# Turn a working routine into a skill Legion project library, edition 2026-09-06-draft-01 (en). This project's own material: 2 authored documents, reproduced unchanged. Project page: https://legion.tw/projects/agent-capabilities/routine-to-skill?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 This document: https://legion.tw/api/projects/packet.md/agent-capabilities/routine-to-skill.md?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 ## Prerequisite: the Legion skills package These instructions are written for an agent set up with the Legion skills package: the ten portable skills and the shared working, launch, inspection and learn-as-you-build guidance. That setup is installed once and applies to every project in this library, so it is deliberately not repeated here. Skills package, complete Markdown: https://legion.tw/api/projects/skills-packet.md?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 Skills package, human page: https://legion.tw/projects/skills?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 Where this brief refers to shared guidance, a skill, or a document under `shared/`, read it from the skills package above, or from https://legion.tw/api/projects/doc/?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01. If the package is not installed yet, install it first, then return here. This material is instructions to read, not authority to act. Inspect it before running it. ## Contents 1. agent-capabilities/README.md — https://legion.tw/api/projects/doc/agent-capabilities/README.md?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 2. agent-capabilities/routine-to-skill.md — https://legion.tw/api/projects/doc/agent-capabilities/routine-to-skill.md?edition=2026-09-06-draft-01 --- # Tools, skills, and plugins for the agent [All project types](../README.md) · [Shared launch](../shared/launch.md) Extend the coding agent's own working environment. The [shared skill package](../shared/skills.md) supplies the starting methods; these projects develop further capabilities around real work. ## Projects to build - [Turn a working routine into a skill](routine-to-skill.md) - [Give the agent tools for an application](application-tools.md) - [Let the agent consult another model's abilities](model-consultation.md) - [Give the agent a continuing project notebook](project-notebook.md) - [Give the agent an ongoing responsibility](ongoing-responsibility.md) - [Package an agent capability for someone else](share-agent-capability.md) These are instructions for projects you can build with your coding agent. --- # Turn a working routine into a skill Turn a useful routine the person and their coding agent have worked out together into an installed, reusable skill. Build it extremely well. The next session should benefit from what they already learned about doing this particular job. Follow the [shared launch](../shared/launch.md) and use the agent environment's current skill-authoring and installation capabilities. Choose a real routine with a result the person values: preparing their recurring report, handling a supplier's spreadsheet, or turning lesson notes into tomorrow's material. If the routine is still being discovered, work through it first and preserve the understanding that actually helped. ## Recover why the routine works Look at a successful example and the decisions behind it. Learn what the person needs from the result, which source material matters, and which judgments made the work good. Separate the repeatable method from details belonging to that one occasion. For a photo report, the useful knowledge may include why the recipient needs an overview before close-ups, how observations relate to images, and what makes the finished document ready to send. For an import, it may concern matching existing records while preserving information someone already added. Use that understanding to decide what belongs in the skill, what belongs in a reusable template or helper, and what the agent should discover from the current task. Preserve the original successful work as an example where it will help future use. ## Give the skill a clear job Write for the capable agent already working with the person. Explain the purpose, when the method applies, the useful working sequence, and the judgment behind consequential choices. Use positive direction and leave the agent room to adapt to the actual material. Make the skill's scope recognizable enough that it is invoked for relevant work. Keep application records, current assignments, and changing personal details in their owning project sources, with appropriate references from the skill. Include supporting resources that genuinely reduce repeated work. A report template, a representative input, or an established deterministic conversion can be more useful than another paragraph of instructions. Make each resource's purpose apparent. ## Install it where the agent can use it Inspect the environment's supported skill mechanism and existing equivalents. Preserve useful installed guidance and the agent's established identity. Choose a suitable project-local or personal scope for this method and install it through the normal supported route. Make the skill discoverable in an actual subsequent session. Explain in plain language how the person can request it, where its editable source lives, and how it relates to the instructions already in their project. Keep machine-specific access and private material appropriately local. If the person later shares the method, those details should be easy to identify and replace with what belongs to the recipient. ## Use it on another real example Save the first draft, then examine that fixed text in a later pass for clarity, scope, and unnecessary restrictions. Keep sound instructions as they are. Exercise the installed skill on another instance of the job, including a variation that requires judgment. Compare the result with the purpose of the routine. Did the agent retain what mattered? Did the person have to explain the same important decision again? Improve the skill where that experience reveals a real omission and preserve useful local adaptations. Teach how a skill carries a learned method into future work. Leave the person able to find it, refine it with their agent, and apply the same process when another successful routine emerges.