| name | description |
|---|---|
| capture-skill | Capture learnings, patterns, or workflows from the current conversation into a new or existing skill. Use when the user wants to save what was learned, discovered, or built during a conversation as a reusable skill for future sessions. |
Capture Skill from Conversation
This skill helps you extract knowledge, patterns, and workflows from the current conversation and persist them as a reusable skill.
When to Use
- The user says "capture this as a skill" or "save this for next time"
- A useful workflow, pattern, or piece of domain knowledge emerged during the conversation
- The user wants to update an existing skill with new learnings
- The conversation uncovered non-obvious steps, gotchas, or best practices worth preserving
Capture Process
Phase 1: Identify What to Capture
Review the conversation for:
- Workflows: Multi-step processes that were figured out through trial and error
- Domain knowledge: Non-obvious facts, configurations, or constraints discovered
- Gotchas and fixes: Problems encountered and their solutions
- Patterns: Code patterns, command sequences, or templates that worked well
- Decision rationale: Why certain approaches were chosen over alternatives
Summarize what you plan to capture and confirm with the user before proceeding.
Phase 2: Decide Destination
If the user already specified a skill or the destination is obvious from context, just proceed. Otherwise, use the AskQuestion tool (or ask conversationally) to clarify:
New or existing skill?
- If existing: Which skill to update? (list relevant skills from
~/.cursor/skills/and.cursor/skills/) - If new: What should it be named?
Storage location (for new skills):
- Personal (
~/.cursor/skills/) — available across all projects - Project (
.cursor/skills/) — shared with the repository
Phase 3: Draft the Skill Content
When capturing into a new skill:
- Choose a descriptive name (lowercase, hyphens, max 64 chars)
- Write a specific description including WHAT and WHEN (third person)
- Distill the conversation into concise, actionable instructions
- Include concrete examples drawn from the conversation
- Add any utility scripts or commands that were used
When updating an existing skill:
- Read the existing SKILL.md
- Identify where new learnings fit (new section, updated steps, additional examples)
- Integrate without duplicating existing content
- Preserve the existing structure and voice
Phase 4: Distillation Guidelines
The goal is to transform a messy conversation into clean, reusable instructions.
Do:
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