Beo Writing Skills

Overview

See ../reference/references/shared-hard-gates.md § Shared References Convention.

This skill teaches a strict test-first loop for beo skills.

Core principle: do not revise or ship a skill until it has first failed under a realistic pressure scenario.

Hard Gates

If the condition is subjective guidance (e.g., "write clearly", "prefer small skills"), express it as a GUIDELINE, not a HARD-GATE.

The Core Cycle: RED -> GREEN -> REFACTOR

• RED -> create realistic pressure scenarios and confirm failure without the skill
• GREEN -> write the minimal skill and rerun the same scenarios with the skill present
• REFACTOR -> close loopholes, generalize the principle, and remove overfit or low-value wording

Use references/writing-skills-operations.md for the exact RED/GREEN/REFACTOR execution flow and documentation steps.

Handoff

After the skill survives RED/GREEN/REFACTOR:

• run the validation flow from references/writing-skills-operations.md
• document the work using references/creation-log-template.md
• keep pressure-test artifacts clear enough to explain why the skill changed

Success Criteria

A beo skill is in good shape when:

• it survives realistic pressure
• it cites or reflects the rule clearly enough to follow it
• it avoids obvious loopholes
• it generalizes beyond the exact original examples

Context Budget

Follow ../reference/references/shared-hard-gates.md § Context Budget Protocol. Skill-specific checkpoint: see references/writing-skills-operations.md for the full procedure.

Red Flags & Anti-Patterns

• Skill has no Hard Gates section (every skill must gate entry)
• Skill duplicates protocol content instead of referencing beo-reference
• Pressure tests don't cover the skill's specific failure modes
• Skill reads STATE.json but doesn't validate schema_version
• Eval fixtures use non-canonical status values

References

Load when needed:

• references/writing-skills-operations.md — exact RED/GREEN/REFACTOR and validation flow
• references/creation-log-template.md — CREATION-LOG.md template
• references/pressure-test-template.md — pressure scenario templates