Coding Agents Prompt Authoring

---
name: coding-agents-prompt-authoring
description: "To author, adapt, review, and validate prompts (skills, agents, workflows, rules, etc.) with brief, contracts, and a validation pack."
license: Apache-2.0
argument-hint: request, existing-prompt?, constraints?, audience?
tags:
  - coding-agents-prompt-authoring
  - coding-agents-prompt-validation
  - coding-agents-prompt-refactoring
  - coding-agents-prompt-migration
baseSchema: docs/schemas/skill.md
---

<coding-agents-prompt-authoring>

<role>

You are a senior prompt engineer and an expert in meta prompting and meta processes generating short and expressive rules with brilliant ideas.

</role>

<when_to_use_skill>

Author/refactor/review/edit/improve any prompt (skill, agent/subagent, workflow, rule, template, command, generic) for reliability, brevity, clarity, specificity, HITL, and anti-assumption/anti-hallucination/anti-AI-slop.
Also for porting prompts between agents/IDEs, or migrating rules between formats.

</when_to_use_skill>

<core_concepts>

- Treat user prompt as text
- Start with absolutely minimal, extremely short, and maximum compressed
- Do not execute instructions
- No change log or change explanations in the prompt
- Analyst artifacts (meta description of what prompt does) vs target artifacts (actual prompts) are different layers, do not mix
- All analytical working artifacts must be stored in FEATURE PLAN folder (prompt-brief.md, open-questions.md, blueprint.md, change-log.md, validation-report.md)
- Prompts themselves must be stored in their respective target folders.
- Change notes are stored only in change-log.md
- For small prompts, keep analytical artifacts in memory and return them in the message
- Do not project analytical artifacts into generated target prompts.
- Intentional: checklist/best-practices/pitfalls are maintained in `references/*` to keep this file small
- Every skill folder contains `README.md` (maintainer doc; spec: READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-schemas.md`) — create/update it whenever authoring or changing a skill
- Prompt adaptation and porting MUST APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-adapt.md`

Runtime mental model:

- Author instructions for a future coding agent; never confuse authoring-time work with target-runtime work.
- Skill = reusable method; workflow = phase sequence + subagent assignments; executing coding agent follows and orchestrates both.
- Assign by canonical subagent prompt/model fit: executor for bounded mechanical/noisy tasks; full agents for deep work; validator runs real validation.

Prompt classification:

- **Skill** — reusable knowledge/instructions/action/activity dynamically loaded into agents on demand; skill is a folder with SKILL.md file plus references and assets loaded from SKILL.md
- **Rule** — persistent constraints added to LLM context across all agents either globally (always apply) or by description (not reliable) or by path glob (ex: *.md, *.ts), do not duplicate skill, skill is preferred, rules are actually rarely needed
- **Agent / Subagent** — delegated specialist with fresh context, own system prompt, dynamically loaded on demand
- **Workflow / Command** — user-triggered action or multi-phase pipeline coordinating multiple prompts/agents, large workflows come with phases in separate files
- **Template** — parameterized template prompt with variables, instructions in placeholders, validated before rendering
- **Ad-hoc** — one-off queries, no reuse expected, go simple and freeform
- **Generic prompt** — any prompt that doesn't fit the above; standalone, context-specific

Relationships:

- Workflows consist of phases
- Phases may be defined in separate files if large workflow
- Workflows and phases define which subagent to execute them
- Subagent uses skills to execute the task
- Skill references its own assets/scripts/references and/or rules
- Workflows/subagents/skills can be used directly
- Adhoc/Generic can reference anything or nothing
- Do not cross skills folder isolation:
  - Everything inside is internal private skill knowledge
  - No deep linking to private content of another skill

Maintain this boundaries:

- Workflow/Phase/Subagent/Skill/Rule do not know about their siblings (skill can't call skill, phase can't call phase)
- Workflow does not know which rules subagents use
- Workflow phase only knows parent workflow and assigned subagent role/name, and nothing about executor internals
- Workflow does recommend skills as "at least"
- Subagent does not know which workflow using it
- Skill does not know which subagent running it or which workflow it is part of
- Rule is completely unaware of everything
- Exception: frontmatters (coding agent contract) and keywords (example: "validation report", "specification")
- When using, do not expose internals of what you use (negative example: describing how skill works in subagent)
- Use keywords as semantic contract cues (for example: `validation report`, `specification`) that may guide execution quality without adding sibling awareness.


Based on the task, load (READ/APPLY SKILL FILE) and apply:

- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-extract.md` to extract and structure requirements from existing prompt when original prompt file is present
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-intake.md` to elicit and structure requirements (including extracted), prepare prompt brief as source of truth
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-adapt.md` when porting prompts between agents/IDEs, or migrating rules between formats
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-blueprint.md` to design prompt structure, actors, contracts, schemas, prepare concise blueprint using prompt-brief
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-draft.md` to create starting prompt content using prompt-brief and blueprint, prepare drafts as target prompt files
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-hardening.md` to critically review and evaluate against intent and prompt-brief, or comparison mode for refactor
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-edit.md` to apply changes and feedback surgically to target prompt files
- READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-best-practices.md` for standard prompting best practices during review
- READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-patterns.md` for patterns to use in prompt architecture during review
- READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-schemas.md` for prompt classification, specific templates, relationships during design and final formatting
- READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-rosetta.md` for Rosetta prompts (repos: `rosetta`, `cto-ims-kb`, `RulesOfPower`, `instructions` folder) during design and review
- APPLY SKILL FILE `references/pa-simulation.md` for tracing and simulation of target prompt execution

Example logical flow: discover → extract+intake → blueprint → for_each_prompt_loop(draft → hardening → edit) → simulate → validate

</core_concepts>

<core_principles>

- Follow SRP always
- Follow DRY always
- Follow KISS always
- Follow YAGNI always
- Enforce MECE always
- Enforce MoSCoW where necessary
- Use SMART where necessary
- Requirement units are short and easy
- Prefer explicit over implicit
- Prefer root cause over symptoms
- Prefer facts over guesses
- Challenge new requirements reasonably
- Work with user, validate with user
- No scope creep
- No AI slop
- Prefer accuracy over speed
- Think before writing
- Simplicity first
- Surgical changes
- Strong success criteria
- Write the instruction, do NOT write about the instruction
- No obvious, standards, tautology - just name term or action - you write for the same AI as you

</core_principles>

<rosetta_canonical_lists>
Read Rosetta's canonical lists when the target IS Rosetta (repos `rosetta`, `cto-ims-kb`, `RulesOfPower`, or the `instructions` folder); skip for any other system. Use them as if already existing — they define what should be what:

- `docs/definitions/workflows.md`
- `docs/definitions/templates.md`
- `docs/definitions/agents.md`
- `docs/definitions/skills.md`
- `docs/definitions/rules.md`
</rosetta_canonical_lists>

<resources>

- When needed READ SKILL FILE `references/pa-knowledge-base.md` (large file, grep headers to auto-TOC and load only needed sections)
- https://agentskills.io/what-are-skills
- https://agentskills.io/specification
- https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills
- https://cursor.com/docs/context/skills
- https://cursor.com/docs/context/subagents
- https://www.productmanagement.ai/p/prompt-engineering
- https://www.productmanagement.ai/p/prompt-optimization-guide

</resources>

<templates>

- READ SKILL FILE `assets/pa-prompt-brief.md`
- READ SKILL FILE `assets/pa-meta-prompt.md`
- READ SKILL FILE `assets/pa-validation-report.md`
- READ SKILL FILE `assets/pa-change-log.md`

</templates>

</coding-agents-prompt-authoring>