Authors catalog sources (skills, fragments, styles) in YAML and projects them. Use when adding a new skill or fragment to the catalog, or before editing a generated file.
Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.
Are you the author of Catalog Authoring?
Add the live security badge to your README. It updates with every re-scan.
[](https://www.skillsdirectory.com/skills/niksavis-catalog-authoring)
---
name: catalog-authoring
description: Authors catalog sources (skills, fragments, styles) in YAML and projects them. Use when adding a new skill or fragment to the catalog, or before editing a generated file.
---
<!-- Generated by `basicly skills-build` from skill.yaml. Do not edit; edit the source. -->
# Catalog Authoring
Write catalog sources in YAML and project them to the files that coding agents load.
## Rules
- **Never name a source for discovery.** Agents load `SKILL.md`, `AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md`, `*.instructions.md`, `*.mdc` and `GEMINI.md` by file name, so a source is `skill.yaml`, `<id>.fragment.yaml` or `style.yaml`. `basicly catalog lint` refuses a `.md` source.
- **Verify where the agent reads the guidance, not the file you edited.** A host can substitute or fall back, so the projection is not what the agent gets.
- **Apply the deletion test to each bullet.** If its removal causes no mistake, leave it out.
- **Tag a source with `technologies` only when it is useless outside that technology.** An untagged source ships everywhere.
- **Keep local sources out of `.basicly/core/` in a consumer repository.** `basicly install` overwrites `.basicly/core/`. Put a fragment in `.basicly-local/fragments/`.
- **Edit a generated file through its source.** `.claude/skills/`, `.claude/rules/*.md`, `.agents/skills/` and the always-on files are projections. Start a source with `basicly catalog new <fragment|skill> <name>`, check it with `basicly catalog lint`, then run `basicly build`. List the sources of one kind with `basicly catalog list skill`, and run `basicly catalog verify` for duplicates, contradictions and scope before a catalog commit.
- **Put a Claude-only prompt, command or runbook in `.claude/*.md`.** No catalog source projects it.
- **Add no copy under `.github/instructions/`.** Copilot then loads the same rule twice. Prefer a skill to a prompt file, and put a custom agent in `.github/agents/*.agent.md`.
## Read when needed
- Before creating or changing a source type, read [sources](references/sources.md) for its schema, placement, overlay and host projection.
- Before composing or delivering guidance, read [projection](references/projection.md) for wording, checks and effective-host readback.
- Completion means the source and delivered host files agree, with local overlays preserved; report actual consumer checks.
