A short post on combining skills. It's not always clear when a skill will be called or triggered. The easiest way is to put instructions and directly invoke the skill you want by name.

For example, for my Today I Learned mini blog site, I have two skills to keep my TILs focussed and concise. One skill evaluates that my text is concise and utilitarian, which is what I expect or aim for in a TIL. And I have a more general skill that I also apply for this blog that creates the text according to UK English 'as done by an English teacher'.

To combine both, I have the review-til skill that invokes both and specifies the output:

Review the provided TIL file or text by running both checks in parallel:

1. **TIL Rules Check**: Invoke the `til-rules-checker` skill to verify content guidelines (word count, focus, clarity, format)

2. **Text Grading**: Invoke the `text-grader` skill to assess spelling, grammar, and clarity using UK English standards

After both checks complete, provide a unified summary with:
- TIL rules verdict (PASS/NEEDS REVISION)
- Text grade (A/B/C/D/F)
- Combined list of actionable improvements (if any)

If a file path is provided as an argument, read that file first. If text is provided directly, use that text.

Note both Invoke the '...' instructions.

This works in Codex and Opencode. When I asked to review two TILs at once (Review both non-committed TILs) the result looks like this:

  Review summary:

  - beads-query-default-limit.md
      - Word count: 32
      - TIL rules: PASS (focused, clear, non-blog style, utilitarian)
      - Text grade: A (96%)
  - beads-query-subcommand.md
      - Word count: 55
      - TIL rules: PASS (focused, clear intent, non-blog style, utilitarian)
      - Text grade: B (84%) due to grammar issues (hard cap applied)

(The reason for the B grade is also detailed in the full output.)

In case you are interested, these are the skills I have currently published online:

  • check-til-rules: This is the skill that has my TIL rules.
  • review-til: The skill I usually invoke that combines the two skills. The content at the time of writing, aside from the frontmatter, is above.