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- skills/read.md (READ, Schema + Use) — knowledge-file contract: frontmatter schema, required/optional sections (normative vs non-normative), layer precedence with applicability-based conflict detection, explicit frontmatter matching semantics (including partial-context handling). - skills/do.md (DO, Action Skill) — action-skill template: frontmatter schema, required sections, four-step pattern (Source -> Relevance -> Worklist -> Action), and the output contract as a JSON schema with outcome, findings, structured references, confidence, and mandatory suppression recording. Includes a worked example. - skills/write.md (WRITE, New Knowledge) — authoring guide: atomicity, size, section guidance, field-by-field choices, file naming, layer choice, pre-PR checklist. Defers to READ for the format spec. - README.md — link the three files from the meta-skills section and update the output-contract paragraph to include outcome and suppressed. - agent-consumption.md — update step 5 (Agent emits structured output) to match the richer DO contract. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
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| 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.
keywordsthat 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 in separate files under /samples/ (or the layer's sample folder) and are referenced by path. 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. Claim only the versions you have evidence for. If the guidance is known to apply from BC 24 onward and you have tested against 26–28, write [26..28], not [24..28]. Under-claim; a future contributor can widen the range.
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.
Pre-PR checklist
Before opening a pull request:
- Frontmatter has all six required fields with valid values (see READ).
- The file has a
## Descriptionsection. - 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.