Some things only live if everyone writes them down.
Every Skill you've made so far is yours alone. You wrote it, you know what's in it, you're the only one who can update it. That works for things about you. But some of the most interesting knowledge in your life isn't owned by one person.
The Family Kitchen · by you alone
You try to write everything you know about how your family cooks. You get grandma's sour-cabbage soup right, but you don't know what dad actually puts in the pancake batter. You guess.
Problem: The Skill is only as accurate as your memory, and there are three people in your family with three different versions of the same recipe.
The Family Kitchen · contributors: you, dad, grandma
Each person adds the facts they actually know. Grandma's sour cabbage is attributed to grandma. Dad's pancake batter is attributed to dad. You add your own thing — how you fold dumplings the way nobody else in the family does it.
Result: Three people, one Skill, zero guessing.
A collaborative Skill isn't just bigger. It's more honest. Nobody pretends to know things they don't. And everyone's voice stays attached to their contribution — so when Claude later says "dad says the batter needs buttermilk," it's actually dad saying it, not you guessing.
What do you know together?
Pick something at least two people in your life know more about than you do. The more people, the better. You're going to need them — they're the contributors.
The best domains are ones where each person remembers something slightly different. That's where the real texture lives — and where the disagreement work in step 5 becomes a feature, not a bug.
Every fact is attributed to the person who knows it.
In a collaborative Skill, no fact floats free. Every single one is tagged with who said it and when. Here are four real facts from a family kitchen Skill — notice how each one keeps its speaker.
Cold water, not warm, for the dumpling dough. Warm water makes the dough lazy.
Dad's pancake batter has buttermilk AND a tablespoon of yogurt. He says the yogurt is a secret but mom always tells everyone.
I fold dumplings with seven creases instead of the usual five. Nobody else in the family does it this way.
The cutting board that looks new is actually the oldest one. Grandma sanded it down when she moved in with us.
Each fact stays tied to the person who actually knows it. When Claude later pulls up a fact about the kitchen, it can say "Tom told me this one" — which is more honest than pretending the Skill knows things on its own. The attribution is the empathy move baked into the code.
Here's what a collaborative Skill looks like.
Two new sections compared to what you've seen: contributors
lists who's in, and every fact now has a by: field.
# A collaborative Skill about how my family actually cooks # Four contributors. Every fact keeps its speaker. name: "The Family Kitchen" description: "How my family actually cooks — with every voice kept" contributors: - name: "Grandma" role: "lived-in chef, no cookbooks" - name: "Dad" role: "weekend breakfast specialist" - name: "Lisa" role: "the dumpling apprentice" - name: "Tom" role: "notices the tools, not the food" facts: - by: Grandma fact: "Cold water, not warm, for dumpling dough" reason: "Warm water makes the dough lazy" - by: Dad fact: "Pancake batter has buttermilk AND a tablespoon of yogurt" reason: "The yogurt is supposed to be a secret" - by: Lisa fact: "Folds dumplings with seven creases instead of five" - by: Tom fact: "The cutting board that looks new is actually the oldest" reason: "Grandma sanded it down years ago" when_to_use: "Any question about how this family cooks" attribution_rule: "Always cite the contributor when quoting a fact"
The key is the last line: attribution_rule.
That tells Claude to always say "Grandma says..." instead of
"The Skill says..." — keeping every contributor's voice attached
to their fact, permanently.
Sometimes two people remember it differently.
This is the most interesting and most misunderstood part of collaborative Skills. When two people disagree about a fact, the beginner instinct is to pick the "right" one. That's always wrong. Here are three real situations. For each one, pick what you'd actually do.
The lasagna incident. Lisa remembers grandma burned the top layer at grandpa's birthday. Tom remembers it was the year grandma added olives by accident. Both are sure they're right.
The secret ingredient. Dad swears grandma's soup has cinnamon in it. Grandma says no, it's allspice, and dad has never been able to tell the difference. They've been arguing about this for a decade.
The family dog. You and Tom are writing facts about your dog Buddy. You say he only barks at the neighbor with the loud motorcycle. Tom says no, Buddy barks at the neighbor with the red hat. You both think you're obviously right.
The answer is always "record both." The disagreement isn't a bug to resolve — it's the shape of how two people actually remember the same thing. A Skill that erases one version is less true than a Skill that keeps both. This is engineering and it's empathy.
Build your own collaborative Skill.
For your —, list three contributors and four facts. Use the dropdown to attribute each fact to whoever told it to you. The YAML builds live as you type.
# Fill in the form above and watch this update. name: ... contributors: ... facts: - by: ... fact: ...
Good facts in this step are ones you actually need to ask someone else for. If you already know all the answers, your domain is too small — try a bigger one.
You finished Makers tier.
Four modules. Four engineering patterns. The hardest of all: recording disagreement without picking a winner.
What you just learned
- A collaborative Skill has multiple contributors — and every fact stays tied to whoever said it.
- Attribution is more than credit. It lets Claude say "grandma says..." instead of pretending the Skill knows things on its own.
- When two contributors disagree, the answer is always to record both.
- The disagreement isn't noise. It's the shape of how two people remember the same thing.
- This is the last Makers module. You now know composition, voice, memory, and collaboration.
Next is Builders tier — ages 13 and up. Builders modules are harder and assume more. Module 01 of Builders is called "Skills That Refuse" — how to build a Skill that can decline to answer, say "I don't know," or flag its own uncertainty.
Before you go on, consider doing the collaborative Skill for real. Ask three people. Record what they actually say. Keep their words. The modules are practice, but the Skills you make from them are real.
★ Before you call it done
Three questions. Same three. Every time.
These are the same three questions for every module in Kindling. They are how you check whether AI did the part it should and you did the part only you could. Tap each one to mark it true.
★ ★ ★