Verb taxonomy & conventions

Every skill's name is a contract: the directory name is the command, and its verb prefix says what kind of action it is. These conventions live in .claude/rules/skills.md; the allow-lists below are injected from config/harness.php (via harness:export-config) so this page can't drift from what harness:check actually enforces.

Verb prefixes

Prefix	Meaning
build-	Create / scaffold something new (pairs with be-complete). App-specific builders take an -in-tempo suffix.
qa-	Audit a concrete artifact — surface findings, confirm before any write.
optimise-	Make an existing thing faster or leaner without changing what it does.
find-	Divergent discovery — surface what is missing; any category list is illustrative, not exhaustive.
source-	Convergent acquisition — go get the best known X and bring it back.
check-	Meta / reasoning — red-team thinking; includes the check-everything orchestrator.
be-	A standing manner of working (e.g. be-caveman, be-complete), not a one-off action.
tidy-	Housekeeping — leave the workspace cleaner than you found it.
fyi-	Reference only — surfaces knowledge, takes no action.

Standalone skills

Single-word skills whose name is the verb — exempt from the prefix check:

vet · debug · brainstorm · ideate · wrap-up · triage · organise · janitor · exterminate

Taxonomy-exempt

Owned skills adopted from elsewhere, kept at their upstream names on purpose (outside the verb taxonomy):

design-taste-frontend · grill-me · grill-with-docs · to-issues · to-blog-issue

Hooks

Deterministic guardrails in .claude/hooks/ — they fire on harness events, not by model choice:

block-local-mutation.sh · blog-writing-reminder.sh · gate.sh · inject-rules.sh · pr-writing-reminder.sh · rector-tidy.sh · session-start.sh · session-title.sh · suggest-skills.sh

harness:check

The integrity command asserts the mechanical invariants of the harness and fails on drift (--fix repairs the safe ones): name == directory, no dangling skill references, a valid verb prefix (or an entry in the lists above), and read-only agents declaring no write tools.

• Skill body soft cap: 120 lines; exempt: design-taste-frontend · brainstorm.
• Read-only agents (must declare no write tools): blind-reviewer · scanner · ideator · chooser.
• Tools that count as a write: Edit · Write · NotebookEdit.