Choose the First Reader Problem Your Skill Should Solve

Your first author skill should help a specific reader complete a task that your method handles well. Prefer a task with a recognizable starting situation, information the reader can supply, and an output you can assess. Keep the first version small enough that you can explain why it made each important decision.

If you have several candidates, compare them before drafting instructions. The worksheet below weighs evidence of recurrence, the clarity of the output, available examples, and the reader's ability to act. It is an editorial selection tool, not a forecast of sales or adoption.

“Help people become better speakers” is a broad ambition. “Help a first-time conference speaker turn a draft topic into a five-minute talk outline” is a candidate task.

Reader discussions can suggest questions, but they cannot select your product for you. In a thread about applying personal-development books, u/ellebelle907 wrote:

“As in, I know the lessons they're trying to teach logically, but its hard for me to go from knowing to doing.”

That is one person's report, not a prevalence estimate or evidence that an AI skill would help. It suggests asking where the transition to action breaks down. Original discussion.

In the same discussion, u/LiteratureWorldly463 described a personal practice:

“I try to attach learnings I want to take from a book to specific goals in my life.”

The comment does not validate a commercial method. It provides a useful reader perspective: usefulness has a context. Your first task should name that context in language a reader would recognize. Original comment.

Look through your own reader questions, workshop exercises, and examples you have permission to use. Rewrite three recurring requests as actions. Use a verb, an object, and a situation: outline a short talk for a conference; diagnose a confusing slide; prepare answers to likely audience questions.

Before scoring, complete the same six fields for every idea:

• Reader: Who encounters this task?
• Trigger: What event makes them need help now?
• Input: What can they bring to the interaction?
• Output: What should they leave with?
• Boundary: What important neighboring task is excluded?
• Evidence: What have you actually seen that suggests a need?

Distinguish a reader request from your interpretation of it. “Four workshop participants asked how to shorten a talk” is different from “people want an AI speaking coach.” The first, if you have those records, is an observation. The second adds assumptions about format and scope.

Unknown evidence should stay unknown. Do not score your favorite idea highly because you can imagine people using it. You can investigate a promising gap later without treating it as established demand now.

Score each criterion from zero to two. Keep a note beside every score so a number never replaces the reason for it.

The maximum is ten. A higher score means the task looks more ready for a first prototype under this worksheet, not more valuable in every sense.

Use two safeguards. First, do not hide a zero in observable output or manageable scope behind a high total. Resolve that gap before building. Second, review the underlying evidence if two candidates are close. A one-point difference is not a scientific result.

Frequency is also contextual. A yearly task can matter greatly when it arrives. The recurrence criterion asks whether you have repeated evidence of the problem; it does not require each individual reader to perform it daily.

Imagine an author has written a practical book about clear presentations. They are considering three skills. The book, evidence notes, and scores below are fictional; no readers were interviewed and no model was tested for this example.

The first candidate covers too much. “Compelling” may involve structure, delivery, subject expertise, rehearsal, or audience fit. It needs to become several specific tasks before it can be assessed fairly.

The second candidate has a visible result: an outline with one central point, an opening, supporting material, and a closing. In this invented scenario, the author has contrasting worked examples and repeated questions from workshop participants about that task.

The third candidate depends on information the reader may not have. A skill should not invent the audience's reasons for reacting badly. A different scope, such as organizing actual audience feedback into questions for the next rehearsal, could be more suitable.

The selection is therefore the five-minute outline. The score is shorthand for a reasoning trail; it does not prove that readers want to pay for it or use AI to do it.

Turn the winning candidate into a usable boundary

A first scope statement could read:

For a speaker who has a topic and a defined audience, help create a draft outline for a five-minute informative talk. Ask for the audience, central point, and available supporting material. Keep unsupported claims out of the outline. Stop after the reader reviews the proposed structure. Do not promise that the talk will persuade the audience or fit the time limit without rehearsal.

This makes several decisions explicit. The skill prepares an outline, not finished slides. It uses supplied support, not invented credentials. It can suggest a structure, while the speaker remains responsible for checking facts and rehearsing.

Identify the passages governing the selected task, including examples and exceptions. Anthropic describes skills as packages of instructions and resources loaded when relevant; that structure does not establish that a particular book conversion works. Agent Skills overview.

For the talk outline, make your judgments explicit: narrow an oversized topic, ask for support behind a claim, and preserve uncertainty about timing until rehearsal. Mark unresolved judgments for author review.

Prepare three scenarios: a reader with complete inputs, one missing an important fact, and one asking for something outside scope. Expected behavior should differ: produce an outline, request the missing evidence, or redirect a request to invent credentials. These are expectations, not model results. Later, compare real runs using the agent skill testing guide.

If a fixed checklist solves the selected task, consider that simpler format. A skill is worth investigating when the next step depends on reader answers and your method supplies the relevant decision rules. Keep rejected candidates with a reason so you can revisit them when evidence changes.

Complete the six-field brief, score the candidates, and write three expected-behavior scenarios. You should be able to explain both why you chose the task and what would make you reconsider.

If you want to turn that selected process into an author skill, visit Skillfully and choose Book onboarding. Bring the task, a worked example, and the decisions you want the skill to preserve.