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SkillOS Labs Inc IconSkillOS

A structured operating system for grounded answers, specialist skills, and agent workflows that remain accountable.

Apache 2.0 components · platform license parameters pending legal approvalModel-agnosticMCP-native

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© 2026 SkillOS Labs Inc contributors.

Built for evidence, ownership, and follow-through.

Documentation
Standard

Skill Definition Standard v1.1

Every skill in the SkillOS Labs Inc registry must satisfy all 13 SDS components. The standard is machine-verifiable: skillos validate runs the admission gates locally before submission.

Submit a skill Open Studio

Tier Rubric

0Foundation

Meta-governance and process skills. Apply across all domains. E.g. alignment-guardian, codebase-audit-before-build.

1Domain

Deep vertical specialists. Healthcare, fintech, legal, agriculture, etc. Broad within one domain.

2Technology

Technology-specific expertise within a domain. E.g. senior-rails-engineer, industry-intelligence.

3Pattern

Cross-cutting design patterns applied to a domain. E.g. design-token-architecture, prompt-quality-evaluator.

4Orchestration

Multi-skill orchestration and workflow coordination. Depends on ≥2 lower-tier skills.

The 13 Mandatory Components

Every component must be present and non-empty. skillos validate checks structural compliance; governance review checks semantic quality.

1
Skill Metadata
YAML frontmatter: skill_name, version (semver), tier (0–4), domain, status, access_level, vertical_tags, platforms, license.
2
Professional Identity
First-person professional declaration. Persona, core competencies, and confidence calibration thresholds.
3
Knowledge Taxonomy
Structured ontology: core concepts, modern best practices, deprecated anti-patterns, and ecosystem landscape.
4
Capability Boundaries
Explicit in-scope and out-of-scope definitions with deterministic routing table to other specialist skills.
5
Decision Engine
Multi-phase cognitive reasoning process: Ethics check → Classification → Assessment → Deterministic generation.
6
Constraint Matrix
Non-negotiable operational boundaries across performance, security, data sovereignty, reversibility, and accessibility.
7
Failure Mode Library
At least 15 named production failure modes: trigger conditions, symptoms, and concrete recovery procedures.
8
Quality Gates
A pre-delivery verification checklist for syntax, security, and domain-specific failure risks; semantic review remains a separate gate.
9
Output Templates
Structured output modes with typed fields and reusable execution schemas.
10
Ethical Constraint Layer
Hard invariants: absolute refusals, anti-manipulation, transparency, and regulatory compliance anchors.
11
Safety Layer
Reversibility classification (LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH/CRITICAL), blast radius containment, and data minimalism.
12
Collaboration Contract
Typed I/O specification: upstream inputs (receives_from) and downstream outputs (outputs_to) with other skills.
13
Validation Record
At least 3 documented test scenarios (simple, ambiguous, edge-case) with explicit verdicts.

Frontmatter Schema

skill.sds.md
---
skill_name: my-skill-slug          # kebab-case, unique in registry
version: 1.0.0                     # semver
tier: 2                            # 0–4
vertical: Software Engineering     # canonical vertical name
status: draft                      # draft | provisional | stable
license: Apache-2.0               # Apache-2.0 | BSL-1.1
depends_on:                        # lower-tier skill slugs
  - senior-developer               # must exist in registry
---

## Component 1: Identity & Classification
…

## Component 13: Validation Record
| Scenario  | Input Summary | Expected Output Summary | Verdict      |
|-----------|--------------|------------------------|--------------|
| Simple    | …            | …                      | PASS         |
| Ambiguous | …            | …                      | PASS         |
| Edge-case | …            | …                      | INCONCLUSIVE |

Admission Gates

All 13 components present and non-empty
Frontmatter parses without errors
skill_name is globally unique in the registry
version follows semver (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH)
tier is 0–4 and matches content complexity
All depends_on skills exist in registry at current tier – 1
Failure Mode Library documents at least 15 named failure modes
Output Templates section contains structured reusable templates
Validation Record documents at least 3 scenarios with explicit verdicts
Ethics Layer declares at least one hard invariant
SDK GuideMCP Integration