Get the FREE Ultimate OpenClaw Setup Guide →

observe

Scanned
npx machina-cli add skill Borda/.home/observe --openclaw
Files (1)
SKILL.md
5.8 KB
<objective>

Analyze how Claude Code is being used in this project and suggest new agents or skills that would reduce repetition, improve quality, or handle specialized domains — without duplicating what already exists.

</objective> <inputs>
  • $ARGUMENTS: optional. Three modes:
    • Omitted — analyze the project's existing patterns and agents to generate suggestions proactively.
    • review — review the existing agent/skill roster for quality and gaps without suggesting new additions.
    • Description of a recurring task — use the description as context when generating suggestions (e.g. "I keep doing X manually").
</inputs> <workflow>

Step 1: Inventory existing agents and skills

Use the Glob tool to enumerate agents (pattern agents/*.md, path .claude/) and skills (pattern skills/*/SKILL.md, path .claude/).

For each agent/skill found, extract: name, description, tools, purpose.

Step 2: Analyze work patterns

If $ARGUMENTS is review: skip the git analysis below and go directly to Step 3 (Gap analysis). Use the agent/skill descriptions from Step 1 as the sole input — the goal is to assess quality and coverage of the existing roster, not to look for new patterns in recent work. In Step 5, suppress all "Recommend: New Agent/Skill" sections and output only "Existing Coverage", "Recommend: Enhance Existing", and "No Action Needed" entries.

Otherwise, look for signals of repetitive or specialist work. The first three git commands are independent — run them in parallel:

# --- run these three in parallel ---

# Recent git history — what kinds of changes are common?
git log --oneline -50

# What file types are being worked on?
git log --name-only --pretty="" -30 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

# Commit message patterns — what verbs appear most?
git log --oneline -100 | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -15

Then use the Read tool on tasks/todo.md and tasks/lessons.md (if they exist) for task history and conversation hints.

If $ARGUMENTS was provided, use it as additional context for the pattern analysis.

Frequency Heuristics

  • 3+ occurrences of a pattern in recent history → candidate for automation
  • 2+ different projects using the same manual process → cross-project skill
  • > 10 minutes of manual work per occurrence → high-value automation target
  • Domain-specific knowledge required → candidate for a specialist agent (not just a skill)

Step 3: Gap analysis

For each identified pattern, check:

  1. Is it already covered? — search existing agent/skill descriptions for overlap
  2. Is it frequent enough? — recurring ≥ 3 times or clearly domain-specialized
  3. Would a specialist add quality? — does it require deep domain knowledge?
  4. Is it too narrow? — a single-use task doesn't warrant a persistent agent

Thresholds for recommendation:

  • New agent: recurring specialist role, complex decision-making, 5+ distinct capabilities
  • New skill: workflow orchestration, multi-step process with fixed structure
  • No new file needed: one-off or already covered by existing agent

Step 4: Check for duplication

Before recommending anything:

For each candidate agent/skill:
- Does any existing agent cover >50% of its scope? → enhance existing instead
- Is the name/description confusingly similar to an existing one? → rename existing
- Does it overlap with a GitHub Copilot agent? → acceptable if serving different tool

Step 5: Report

## Agent/Skill Suggestions

### Existing Coverage (no gaps found)
- [agent/skill]: covers [pattern] well — no new file needed

### Recommend: New Agent — [name]
**Trigger**: [what recurring pattern or gap justifies this]
**Gap**: [what existing agents don't cover]
**Scope**: [what it would do — 3-5 bullet points]
**Suggested tools**: [Read, Write, Edit, Bash, etc.]
**Draft description**: "[one-line description for frontmatter]"

### Recommend: New Skill — [name]
**Trigger**: [what repetitive workflow justifies this]
**Gap**: [why existing skills don't cover it]
**Scope**: [what workflow steps it would orchestrate]
**Draft description**: "[one-line description for frontmatter]"

### Recommend: Enhance Existing — [agent/skill name]
**Add**: [specific capability missing from current version]
**Why**: [what recurring task would benefit]

### No Action Needed
[pattern]: already handled by [existing agent/skill]

## Confidence
**Score**: [0.N]
**Gaps**: [e.g., git history too shallow, task files not present, descriptions too generic to compare]

Anti-patterns to Avoid

  • Creating an agent for every different topic (agents are roles, not tasks)
  • Duplicating an existing agent with a slightly different name
  • Creating a skill that just calls one agent with fixed args (not enough value)
</workflow> <notes>
  • This skill is introspective: it looks at the tooling itself, not just the code
  • Run periodically (e.g., monthly) or after noticing repetitive manual work
  • Suggestions are proposals — always review before creating new files
  • After creating a new agent/skill based on a suggestion, re-run this skill once to confirm the gap is resolved, then stop
  • Follow-up chains:
    • Suggestion accepted for new agent/skill → /manage create to scaffold and register it
    • Suggestion to enhance existing → edit the agent/skill directly, then /sync
</notes>

Source

git clone https://github.com/Borda/.home/blob/main/.claude/skills/observe/SKILL.mdView on GitHub

Overview

Observe analyzes how Claude Code is used and inventories the current agent/skill roster to uncover repetitive tasks and underutilized domains. It then proposes creating new agents or skills to streamline workflows while avoiding duplicates.

How This Skill Works

It inventories existing assets using glob patterns (agents/*.md and skills/*/SKILL.md), then analyzes recent work signals (e.g., git history, task notes) to identify patterns that benefit from automation. Based on frequency, scope, and domain need, it outputs actionable recommendations or enhances existing coverage.

When to Use It

  • You notice repetitive manual tasks across projects.
  • You’re trying to reduce duplication and maintain a clean roster.
  • There’s a domain-specific knowledge gap that would benefit from a specialist agent.
  • You want to optimize for quality by standardizing multi-step workflows.
  • You’re onboarding a new project and want to assess coverage and gaps.

Quick Start

  1. Step 1: Inventory existing agents and skills using the glob patterns from Step 1.
  2. Step 2: Run frequency heuristics on recent git history and task notes to identify targets.
  3. Step 3: Review the gap analysis and implement or adjust agents/skills accordingly.

Best Practices

  • Inventory agents/skills with the Glob tool as Step 1.
  • Apply frequency heuristics: look for 3+ occurrences, 2+ projects, >10 minutes per occurrence.
  • Check for overlap before proposing new work; avoid duplicates.
  • Prefer new agents for cross-project or domain-specific tasks; use new skills for fixed multi-step processes.
  • Validate recommendations against existing tasks in tasks/todo.md and lessons.md if present.

Example Use Cases

  • Recurring code-formatting or linting across repositories prompts a new 'format-enforcer' agent.
  • Repeated data extraction from customer logs leads to a 'log-extractor' skill.
  • Common boilerplate scaffolding across services suggests a 'boilerplate-hero' agent.
  • Domain-specific knowledge like financial compliance suggests a 'compliance-brief' skill.
  • Repetitive test-generation tasks trigger a 'test-gen' agent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Add this skill to your agents
Sponsor this space

Reach thousands of developers