bcquality/skills/write.md

kind	id	version	title
meta-skill	write	1	New Knowledge — how to author a knowledge file

WRITE

Anyone — human or agent — adding a knowledge file to BCQuality follows this guide. READ is the format specification; WRITE is the authoring guide. This file does not restate the schema; consult READ for field-by-field semantics.

Before you start

Read skills/read.md first. A file that does not conform to READ will be rejected. WRITE assumes READ is already understood.

The atomicity rule

One knowledge file covers one concern. If two ideas would share a file, split them into two files and cross-reference from the Description. A good test: could an action skill reasonably want to cite one without the other? If yes, they are two concerns.

Symptoms that a file is trying to be two:

• Two Best Practice sections.
• A Description that uses "and" to join two topics.
• keywords that span two unrelated vocabularies.

Size

Target under 100 lines. Ideal under 50. Long files almost always mean two concerns; the fix is to split, not to compress.

Sections

Description is the only required section and the one that matters most. It states the concern and why it matters in two to five sentences. It is the primary retrieval target — write it as if a skill is deciding whether to load this file based on this text alone.

Best Practice is optional but recommended when the concern has a clear preferred approach. State the approach and the reasoning. Keep it to the what and why; the how (code) belongs in a sample file.

Anti Pattern is optional but recommended when the concern has a common wrong approach. State the pattern, the consequence, and the signal a reviewer or agent can use to detect it. Anti Pattern sections are highly actionable for review skills; write them with detection in mind.

Custom ## sections are permitted when they serve the concern (for example, ## Applies to for scope caveats or ## See also for related files). Consumers are not required to understand them, so do not put load-bearing content there.

No fenced code blocks

Knowledge files do not contain code. Samples live as sibling files next to the article — <slug>.good.al, <slug>.bad.al, etc. — in the same knowledge-layer folder. See skills/read.md for the full convention. This keeps knowledge files retrieval-friendly and prevents code from drifting out of sync with BC platform changes buried inside prose.

Choosing frontmatter values

bc-version. Default to [all] when the guidance is universal — a BC language pattern, a property on a long-standing platform type, a CodeCop rule, or a platform behaviour that has not changed across versions. Use an explicit list or range ([26, 27, 28], [26..28]) only when the guidance is tied to a version-gated API, a deprecation, or platform behaviour that genuinely differs across versions. When guidance applies to a feature introduced in version N and not expected to be removed, prefer the open-ended range [N..] over a closed range so the file keeps matching future versions — reserve a closed upper bound for guidance that genuinely stops applying (for example, a behaviour removed or replaced in a later version). Most knowledge files should be [all]; reach for a range only with a concrete reason.

domain. Pick one. If two fit, the file is probably two concerns. If no existing domain fits, introduce a new one — domains are open. Prefer existing domains when they are a reasonable fit, to keep retrieval predictable.

keywords. Three to ten, lowercase, kebab-case. Write them as the search terms an engineer or agent would use to find this concern. Include synonyms when a concept has multiple common names (for example, find-set and findset). Do not duplicate the domain or title as a keyword.

technologies. List every technology the guidance touches, explicitly. Do not use a sentinel; there is no [all] for technologies. If the guidance is truly technology-agnostic, the file probably belongs in a different repository.

countries. Default to [w1] (worldwide). Use ISO country codes only when the guidance is specific to a localization — tax regulations, electronic invoicing formats, country-specific VAT rules. [w1] is mutually exclusive with country codes.

application-area. Default to [all]. Restrict only when the guidance is specific to a BC application area — posting routines in Finance, lot tracking in Warehouse Management. [all] is mutually exclusive with specific areas.

File naming

kebab-case.md. The name should echo the concern: filter-before-find.md, avoid-implicit-commit.md, telemetry-for-failed-posts.md. Avoid generic names (performance.md) and version numbers in the name.

Choosing a layer

• /microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/ — platform-endorsed guidance. Authored or approved by the BC platform team. Use this layer only when the guidance reflects a platform guarantee or official recommendation.
• /community/knowledge/<domain>/ — shared community patterns. The default layer for contributions from outside the platform team. Content here can be promoted to /microsoft/ once it proves itself.
• /custom/knowledge/<domain>/ — partner or customer overrides. Generally does not appear in the BCQuality repository itself; /custom/ lives in consumer repositories.

Writing to /custom/ — fork precondition

The /custom/ layer is empty by default in the upstream microsoft/BCQuality repository — it ships as a template (README.md plus .gitkeep placeholders) and is meant to be populated only inside a fork or consumer clone that an organization controls. Custom content is partner- or customer-specific by definition and is never accepted upstream.

Before authoring or scaffolding any file under /custom/knowledge/ or /custom/skills/, an author — human or agent — MUST confirm the working repository is not microsoft/BCQuality:

• Check the origin remote: git remote get-url origin. If it points at github.com/microsoft/BCQuality, stop — you are in the upstream repo, not a fork.
• If you are in the upstream repo, do not write the file. Either fork the repository (or clone it into your organization's own repo) and add the custom content there, or — if the guidance is genuinely shareable — author it in /community/knowledge/ instead.

A pull request that adds /custom/ content to microsoft/BCQuality will be automatically closed by the Guard custom layer workflow. Validate the fork precondition first so authoring effort is not wasted on a PR that cannot be merged.

Pre-PR checklist

Before opening a pull request:

• Frontmatter has all six required fields with valid values (see READ).
• The file has a ## Description section.
• No fenced code blocks.
• File is under 100 lines.
• File covers one concern.
• File is in the correct layer and domain folder.
• Name is kebab-case and descriptive.

Agents scaffolding new files SHOULD run this checklist programmatically before emitting the file.