The YAML Header
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The YAML Header
Every skill starts with a YAML frontmatter block. This is metadata that Claude Code uses to decide when and how to surface the skill.
---
name: log-to-daily
description: Log structured observations to today's daily note in Obsidian. Use when the user wants to record what happened in a session, capture a decision, or save progress notes.
use_when: User says "log this", "save to daily note", "record this session", or at the end of any work session that produced meaningful output.
user-invocable: true
---
The fields that matter most:
name — matches the directory. Keep it short and verb-oriented.
description — this is what Claude Code reads to decide whether to invoke the skill. Write it for the model, not for humans. Include the use cases you want it to catch.
use_when — optional but useful. Triggers that should cause automatic invocation. Be specific — vague triggers cause false positives.
user-invocable — whether the user can invoke it directly with a slash command. Most skills are true.