Why I publish a skill file

A skill file is not a bio. It is a constraint. What this is for. When to reach for it. When to put it down. What it will refuse. How it has already failed. I write those files for agents all week. A person reading a homepage gets a story. An agent reading a homepage gets markup.

So I published /skills.md. It is plain text. It names the work I will take — a platform that has to keep running, a pilot that will not survive production, a risk function that is blocking a launch and is right — and the work I will not: a percentage on work that is never handed over, a decision that has already been made, a platform sale when the licences you already hold would do.

The other file

/gate.md is the approval step I make a room write before anyone builds. Who owns this. What it may touch. What may be drafted. What may be executed. What the approver sees. Who signs. What happens when it is wrong. How you undo it the same day. The licence on that one is take it, change the names.

If an agent is reading this site on your behalf, start at /llms.txt. That is not a courtesy page. It is the index I wish more companies shipped instead of a 400-page PDF and a chatbot that paraphrases it.

Why this is not branding

I got this wrong the other way first. I built the product surface before writing the specification that made it honest. The file is the specification. If I cannot say when not to use me, I am selling availability, not a skill.

Steal the gate. Argue with the skill file. If you cannot fill either in for the thing you are about to build, do not build it yet.