# Outside references Read this when the user asks where the official skill specification is, how a particular harness loads skills, or wants to read the sources BMad's conventions build on. Give the link and one line on what it covers; do not fetch pages to answer questions these help files already answer. | Resource | What it covers | |---|---| | Agent Skills specification: | The open `SKILL.md` format BMad skills follow: `name` and `description` rules, optional keys, the `scripts/`, `references/` and `assets/` folders, progressive disclosure, the 500-line guidance. BMad uses `name` and `description` only and treats `allowed-tools` as the host's concern. | | Agent Skills overview: | What skills are and which agents support the format. | | Anthropic, Agent Skills: | The three-level loading model (metadata, instructions, resources on demand) and where skills work across Anthropic products. | | Anthropic, skill authoring best practices: | Concise writing, degrees of freedom, third-person descriptions, one-level-deep references, building evaluations first. Several of BMad's canon rules are rewrites of these in BMad's terms. | | Anthropic skills repository: | Example skills and the skill-creator skill whose eval loop the skill-creator approach follows. | | Claude Code skills: | Where Claude Code loads skills from, its frontmatter extensions such as `disable-model-invocation`, slash invocation, and dynamic context. | | Codex and ChatGPT skills: | How Codex loads skills from `.agents/skills`, explicit versus implicit invocation, and its description budget. | | Cursor rules: | The `.mdc` rule format Smithy converts from: `alwaysApply`, `description` and `globs`. | | The `skills` CLI: | `npx skills add`, the installer BMad uses, with its agent paths and options. | | Skills directory: | A directory of installable skills, useful for seeing what exists before building. | | Superpowers: | A skills-based methodology whose writing-skills guidance informed some of BMad's rules. | BMad's own conventions are in these help files and in Smithy's canon; they do not require any page above to be read.