writing-beats
Skill246 starsChanged 46 days agoApache-2.0View on GitHub
Shape an article as a journey of beats, choose-your-own-adventure style. The user picks a starting beat from the raw material, you write only that beat, then offer options for where to pivot next, beat by beat, until the article reaches a natural end. Use when the user has raw material and wants to assemble it as a narrative rather than an argument.
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
4 rules. 4 are common, 0 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.
4
Common
Most of the 62 edited versions we read keep these.
0
Distinctive
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Common: line 10
If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
- Common: line 33
If a "beat" needs five paragraphs and three subheadings, it's not a beat — it's two beats glued together.
- Common: line 49
If the user edits a previous beat substantially, let it change what comes next.
- Common: line 50
If the user says "rewrite that beat" or "go back and try a different beat 3", do it — edit in place, leave the rest alone.
“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 62 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
<what-to-do>The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material.
If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
Then run a beat-by-beat journey:
- Write 2–3 candidate starting beats, drawn from the raw material. Each is a different entry point into the article. Show the user the beats before writing it to the article file. The user picks one. Preview what beats that might lead to once written - as if the user is seeing a little way down the path.
- Once the user picks a starting beat, write only that beat to the article file. A beat may be one sentence or several paragraphs — whatever that beat naturally is. Stop there.
- Re-read the article file from disk. Then offer 2–3 candidate next beats — different directions the journey could pivot to from where the article now stands.
- Loop steps 2–4 until the article reaches a natural end.
</what-to-do><supporting-info>What is a beat
A beat is one move in the journey. It does one thing — sets a scene, lands a point, asks a question, drops an aside, twists the angle. Then it stops, leaving the reader at a place where the next beat can pivot.
A beat is sized by what it needs:
- A single sentence if that's all the move is ("And then nothing happened for three weeks.").
- A short paragraph if the move needs setup.
- Multiple paragraphs if the beat is a self-contained vignette, argument, or example.
If a "beat" needs five paragraphs and three subheadings, it's not a beat — it's two beats glued together. Split it.
Writing one beat
Once a beat is picked, write that beat only to the article file. Do not write the next beat.
Pull material from the raw pile to populate the beat. You can paraphrase, split, recombine, or quote. The pile is a quarry.
Ending the journey
The article ends when the journey is complete — not when the pile is empty. Most piles will have leftover fragments that don't make it in. That is fine; that is the point of having more raw material than you need.
Writing rhythm
- Append one beat at a time. Never write ahead.
- Re-read the article file from disk before every write. Preserve user edits absolutely.
- If the user edits a previous beat substantially, let it change what comes next.
- If the user says "rewrite that beat" or "go back and try a different beat 3", do it — edit in place, leave the rest alone.
</supporting-info>Other versions74 projects use a version of this.
Word for word · 4
- metrogg/AgentHub★ 19100% same
- daidaibunny/agent-skills★ 2100% same
- davidanthonyn/claude-skills★ 0100% same
- juteai/jute-dash★ 0100% same
Edited · 60
- mattpocock/skills★ 309k42% same
- loulanyue/skills★ 23142% same
- tt-a1i/matt-skills-with-to-goal★ 19242% same
- VoDaiLocz/kilo-kit-mcp★ 2842% same
- George-RD/design-studio★ 1042% same
- caterpi11ar/giclaw★ 942% same
- getmodern-ai/graft★ 942% same
- GAGAA-HUE/ASHUO-claude-skills★ 542% same
- Roentek/Claude_Code_Boilerplate_Framework★ 442% same
- anis-dr/skills★ 341% same
50 more not listed
Wrote their own version · 10
- vinvcn/mattpocock-skills-zh-CN★ 5.5ksame name
- devcxl/mattpocock-skills-zh★ 522same name
- WenWuZhiDao/mattpocock-skills-zh★ 27same name
- imMamdouhaboammar/matts-skills-into-chatgpt★ 8same name
- Boom-Vitt/skills-thai★ 5same name
- malinskibeniamin/skills★ 4same name
- shumingyang-opencode/mattpocock-skills-zh-tw★ 3same name
- hmjBill/skills★ 1same name
- Artknighty/skills-ptbr★ 0same name
- popsiclelmlm/skills-cn★ 0same name
How matches are found. Word for word: the exact same text. Edited: shares passages with this file (“99% same” means 99% of its five-word phrases also appear here; 10% or more counts). Their own version: similar meaning, or, weakest, the same name. We can’t tell which project had it first. Projects are counted among the 200 most-starred candidates, and mentions are links to the repository we found, up to 50 per site, so both counts are a floor.
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- writing-fragmentsSkill
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- openspec-archive-changeSkill
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