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Agent Skill

Crafting Effective Readmes skill

crafting-effective-readmessoftaworks/agent-toolkitskills/crafting-effective-readmes/SKILL.md

Use when writing or improving README files. Not all READMEs are the same — provides templates and guidance matched to your audience and project type.

2.6kMIT

always on

35 tokname + description

once used

589 tokSKILL.md body

bundled files

1356 KB

repo stars

2.6kGitHub

Install the Crafting Effective Readmes skill

Skills CLI (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others)

npx skills add https://github.com/softaworks/agent-toolkit --skill crafting-effective-readmes

Claude Code, by hand (all projects)

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/softaworks/agent-toolkit.git /tmp/agent-toolkit
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R /tmp/agent-toolkit/skills/crafting-effective-readmes ~/.claude/skills/crafting-effective-readmes

For one project only, copy the folder into .claude/skills/ in that project instead. The agent picks it up when a task matches its description.

What it costs your context

Agent Skills load in three steps. Tokens counted with the o200k tokenizer; your model's count will differ a little.

WhenWhat loadsCost
Every sessionName and description35 tok
When the agent uses itThe SKILL.md instructions589 tok
Only if opened13 bundled files (56 KB)varies

Until it is used, crafting-effective-readmes costs about 39× less than the median MCP server we measured (1,363 tokens on every turn). Installing all 43 skills from softaworks/agent-toolkit would load 2,462 tokens of descriptions. Skills vs MCP study

Checks

Our checks found nothing to flag: it follows the Agent Skills specification's naming and size guidelines and doesn't pipe downloads into a shell.

Checked 2026-10-22 · method

What's inside

The headings of its SKILL.md. Read the full file on GitHub.

  • Crafting Effective READMEs
  • Overview
  • Process
  • Step 1: Identify the Task
  • Step 2: Task-Specific Questions
  • Step 3: Always Ask
  • Project Types
  • Essential Sections (All Types)
  • References

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