SwarmCraft AI skills give you a small vocabulary for directing operational and software work. You choose an outcome such as work, discover, prototype, plan, build, check, or review. The skill gives your AI assistant the detailed workflow, boundaries, and evidence requirements.
SwarmCraft skills give operator-builders a vocabulary for directing software development without requiring them to learn software engineering.
You still own the problem, business rules, priorities, and approval. The AI still needs to apply appropriate architecture, testing, security, design, and implementation practice underneath.
How to invoke a skill
Choose GitHub Copilot or Codex with SwarmCraft: Choose AI Provider. Start or reconcile your chosen workflow in a trusted repository to install its matching adapters:
- Copilot commands begin with
/, such as/do task=<packet-path>. - Codex skills begin with
$swarmcraft-, such as$swarmcraft-do task=<packet-path>.
For normal board work, use the extension's Copy SwarmCraft Command, Copy Plan Command, or Copy Test Command action. It supplies the correct provider syntax and packet path. Paste the copied command into your AI chat.
Specialist skills can be invoked directly when their purpose applies. The seeded skill, not this summary, is the authority for its required inputs, safety checks, files, and completion rules.
Choose the right skill
| Skill | Guiding question |
|---|---|
work | What do I need to get done, and what do we learn while doing it? |
automate | Can this bounded piece of work run reliably with appropriate review and recovery? |
formalise | What application opportunity is supported by our reviewed operational evidence? |
discover | What do we actually need, and what evidence supports it? |
spend-analysis | What are our existing software and services costing us? |
design | How should this look, feel, and behave? |
prototype | What do we need to make tangible before we commit? |
plan | What exactly are we going to build? |
do | What approved work are we ready to build? |
test | Does it behave as intended in realistic scenarios? |
check | Is the implementation complete, sound, and supported by evidence? |
review | Is it good enough to approve and move to Done? |
security | What risks matter here, and how should we address them? |
change | What will this change affect, and how can we introduce it safely? |
For project packets, human approval happens during review. Once the review is approved, the SwarmCraft extension moves the packet to Done. test, prototype, design, and security support delivery when the work needs them. They do not replace the packet or create extra board lanes. change is an advisory pre-deployment assessment. discover and spend-analysis belong to the earlier discovery path.
work, automate, and formalise belong to Operate, the starting path for operational work. All three are seeded together; start with Work. It maintains terminology, knowledge, systems, and domain records as useful work reveals them. You approve operational meaning and outcomes; SwarmCraft maintains the technical model. Automation may be useful after one example, but still needs representative evidence, tests, review, and recovery. Formalisation approves selected local evidence—not an upload, purchase, or transfer of authority to a new app. Discovery and project skills are added through their respective workflows; this table is not a promise that every skill is installed in every repository.
The review skill organizes the diff, evidence, risks, and open decisions, then records the person's decisions through the human review and approval process.
Why SwarmCraft skills are different
Many AI skill collections encode software-engineering practices such as architecture, testing, security, and code review. They help developers give an AI better engineering instructions.
SwarmCraft starts with the operator's intent. Operator-builders and domain experts can direct work using outcomes such as discover, design, prototype, plan, do, test, check, review, and change. The AI still applies the appropriate engineering practices underneath.
An experienced developer might say:
Use TDD, review the architecture, check the API boundaries, and run a security audit.
An operator-builder should be able to say:
We understand the problem. The prototype looks right. Plan it, build it, prove it works, and show me what needs my approval.
SwarmCraft does not replace good engineering practice. It gives the person who understands the problem control over the outcome, evidence, and approval without requiring them to become a software engineer.
Repair missing or stale skills
For project guidance, run SwarmCraft: Update Repo Guidance. Missing or unchanged generated files are updated, owner edits are preserved as reported conflicts, and the project-guidance diff remains for normal review and commit.
For an Operate repository, run SwarmCraft: Start or Reconcile Operate after signing in. Validated seed changes receive a scoped automatic local commit; ignored data, owner-edited records, and unrelated staged work are excluded. Nothing is pushed. If Git identity, signing, or a hook prevents the checkpoint, fix Git and rerun; the files are preserved. Reload the workspace when prompted after Codex skill changes. Use Continue Work to copy the command for the repository's seeded provider.
Operate skills also checkpoint approved work locally. Use safe inputs: .gitignore excludes files, not sensitive rows inside tracked records, and cannot erase previous commits. AI-provider processing is separate from content-free SwarmCraft seed telemetry; do not assume local work means all inputs stay on your machine.
Continue with Deliver with SwarmCraft in VS Code for the interactive packet workflow, or deliver with the one-shot CLI for a bounded experienced-operator run.