One post tagged with "repo-instructions"

When I look at repos that manage agents and skills, I keep noticing the same pattern: governance rules do not stay in the instruction layer. They get pushed down into skills. A repo starts with a clean distinction in theory, then practical pressure takes over. It feels easier to tuck a rule into the skill that already handles PRs, releases, reviews, or docs updates than to keep the governance layer separate and durable.

That leak creates a mess fast. Policy gets buried inside execution, contributors have to hunt through step-by-step workflow files to figure out what is actually required, CI can only enforce the rules that escaped into the right place, and every workflow tweak risks rewriting what should have been a stable repo expectation. The instructions-versus-skills distinction only matters if you keep the layers separate. Once rules get pushed into skills, you lose both layers.

So I kept pulling on one simple question: when does guidance belong in repo instructions, and when does it belong in a skill?