Skills as Portable Workflows1 / 2

2 min lesson

SKILL.md with scripts and templates

Describe what "Start with this check: The skill has a clear trigger and outcome" changes in practice.

The job: the workflow becomes portable, versioned and easier for Cursor to execute consistently. Start with this check: The skill has a clear trigger and outcome. Keep it small enough to check the result yourself instead of taking the summary on trust.

Turn a repeated job into a project Skill

0:42 · narrated

Read this demo as text

Filter Rules, Skills, Subagents to this project. The changelog row is real discovery chrome — name plus trigger description, not an invented skill catalog.
Open the file .cursor slash skills slash changelog slash SKILL dot md. Keep the trigger, ordered steps, and helper boundary together so the workflow is versioned with the repo.
Invoke slash changelog. The Skill runs its local commit collector, groups the result, and hands back a bounded draft — no hidden procedure left in your head.

Find a project Skill, read its SKILL.md contract, then invoke the script-backed workflow.

Practice next: Wrap one repeated job in .cursor/skills/<name>/SKILL.md and test it on a small real task.

Simulated Cursor 3.12 (macOS, light) — beta educational reconstruction, not the real product.

Learn more

Full explanation

SKILL.md with scripts and templates

Skills — turn a hand-run changelog into a portable workflow

SKILL.md with scripts and templates

SayEvery release I run the same play by hand: collect the merged PRs since the last tag, sort them into Added / Fixed / Changed, then fill our CHANGELOG template. Same inputs each time, and too structured to sit in a short Rule.

Type.cursor/skills/changelog/SKILL.md

TypeUse when: cutting a release changelog. Steps: run collect-prs.sh, group by label, apply wording-guide.md, fill entry.md.

DoMove the whole hand-run procedure out of your notes and into SKILL.md as a trigger plus ordered steps.

SeeThe steps that used to live in your head now sit in one file the Agent can read.

Typechangelog/ — SKILL.md · collect-prs.sh · wording-guide.md · entry.md

DoPut the three supporting files in the same folder as SKILL.md, not in some scripts/ dir across the repo.

SeeEverything the job needs is local to the skill: the script that lists merged PRs, the wording reference, and the entry template.

SayRun it on last week's release as a small test, and flag any step that's wrong.

DoFix that one line in the script, then commit the skill so the change is reviewed and versioned.

SeeThe first run mis-tags the base: collect-prs.sh used HEAD~50 instead of the last tag, so it pulled in two stale PRs.

Typewrite the changelog for this release

SeeThe plain phrase loads the changelog skill on its own. The Agent runs collect-prs.sh and fills entry.md with the grouped PRs, then hands back a finished changelog without asking where the script or template live.

Learn more

Optional practice

Practice: SKILL.md with scripts and templates

QYou've applied it. What actually proves the work is done, not just a plausible answer?