Agent Skills: Prompting - Meta-Prompting & Template System

Prompting - Meta-Prompting & Template System

Invoke when: meta-prompting, template generation, prompt optimization, programmatic prompt composition, creating dynamic agents, generating structured prompts from data.

Overview

The Prompting skill owns ALL prompt engineering concerns:

• Standards - Anthropic best practices, Claude 4.x patterns, empirical research
• Templates - Handlebars-based system for programmatic prompt generation
• Tools - Template rendering, validation, and composition utilities
• Patterns - Reusable prompt primitives and structures

Workflow Routing

| Workflow | Trigger | File | |----------|---------|------| | RenderTemplate | "render template", "generate from template" | CLI tool | | ValidateTemplate | "validate template", "check template syntax" | CLI tool | | ApplyStandards | "review prompt", "optimize prompt" | Reference Standards.md |

Core Components

1. Standards.md

Complete prompt engineering documentation based on:

• Anthropic's Claude 4.x Best Practices (November 2025)
• Context engineering principles
• 1,500+ academic papers on prompt optimization

2. Templates/

Five core primitives for programmatic prompt generation:

| Primitive | Purpose | |-----------|---------| | ROSTER | Agent/skill definitions from data | | VOICE | Personality calibration settings | | STRUCTURE | Multi-step workflow patterns | | BRIEFING | Agent context handoff | | GATE | Validation checklists |

3. Tools/

RenderTemplate.ts - Core rendering engine

bun run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/Prompting/Tools/RenderTemplate.ts \
  --template Primitives/Briefing.hbs \
  --data path/to/data.yaml \
  --output path/to/output.md

ValidateTemplate.ts - Template syntax checker

bun run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/Prompting/Tools/ValidateTemplate.ts \
  --template Primitives/Briefing.hbs

Examples

Example 1: Generate agent roster

User: "Generate a roster from my agents.yaml"
-> Uses RenderTemplate with Roster.hbs
-> Outputs formatted agent definitions

Example 2: Create briefing for research agent

User: "Brief the research agent on this task"
-> Uses RenderTemplate with Briefing.hbs
-> Generates complete agent context handoff

Example 3: Validate template syntax

User: "Check my new template for errors"
-> Uses ValidateTemplate
-> Reports syntax issues, missing variables

Best Practices

1. Separation of Concerns - Templates for structure, YAML for content
2. Keep Templates Simple - Business logic in TypeScript, not templates
3. DRY Principle - Extract repeated patterns into partials
4. Validate Before Rendering - Check all required variables exist

References

• Standards.md - Complete prompt engineering guide
• Templates/README.md - Template system overview
• Tools/RenderTemplate.ts - Implementation details