Teaching your Skill to say no.

A "no" is only good if you know which kind it is.

Not all refusals are the same. There are exactly three legitimate reasons for a Skill to decline — and each needs a different response from the Skill. Mix them up and the refusal sounds wrong.

The shape of "I don't know."

Even when a Skill knows it should say "I don't know," it usually says it wrong. Bad "I don't know" responses sound apologetic and vague; good ones are specific about what isn't known.

Here's what refusal rules look like in code.

Same Skill as before, but with three new sections: scope, refuses_to, and uncertainty_template. Each one handles one kind of "no."

# A Skill about my dog Buddy — with refusal rules

name: "My Dog Buddy"
version: "2.0.0"
description: "Everything Claude needs to know about my golden retriever"

facts:
  - "Buddy is a 3-year-old golden retriever"
  - "He only answers to his name in a higher pitch"
  - "He loves peanut butter cookies from the farmers market"
  - "He has a small scar on his left ear"
  - "He only barks at one specific neighbor"

# === NEW: the constraint block ===

scope:
  covers: "Buddy specifically — his habits, preferences, personality"
  does_not_cover:
    - "Golden retrievers in general"
    - "Dog training advice"
    - "Medical / veterinary questions"

refuses_to:
  - kind: out_of_bounds
    when: "asked about his vet records, medications, or health history"
    because: "Private. Ask the vet or my parents."

  - kind: out_of_scope
    when: "asked to compare him to other dogs or give training advice"
    because: "I'm specific to Buddy, not a dog expert in general"

  - kind: out_of_knowledge
    when: "asked a factual question I don't have in my facts list"
    because: "I'd rather say 'I don't know' than guess"

uncertainty_template: "I have [what I know], but not [what's missing]. Want to [next step]?"

personality: "Proud of his scar, suspicious of normal treats"
when_to_use: "Any time the user asks about Buddy specifically"

Notice how the refuses_to block spells out exactly which kind of refusal goes with which trigger. And uncertainty_template is the exact sentence shape the Skill uses when it doesn't know — so the refusal sounds consistent every time, not ad-hoc.

Write refusal rules for one of your Skills.

Pick any Skill you've built. Think hard about what it should refuse to answer. The YAML builds itself as you type.

# Fill in the form above and watch this update.
scope: ...
refuses_to:
  - ...

This is the hardest builder in Skills Workshop. You're explicitly deciding what your own work is not for — and saying so out loud. Most adults never do this.

Spot the overreach.

Two rounds. In each round, look at the Skill's response and decide whether it's handling its limits honestly — or quietly bluffing.

In Module 04 — the very last Skills Workshop module — you'll learn how to publish a Skill so other people can use it. Attribution, licenses, and the quiet responsibility of putting your work into the world with your name on it.