file-handler

file-handler

One on-disk convention for every skill in this repo:

.skillz/
└── <type>/
    └── <slug>

<type> groups artifacts by purpose (note, plan, draft, log, …). <slug> is the filename. Both are validated — no path separators, no .., no leading dots — so a skill can hand a user-supplied slug straight through without sanitizing.

How to use this skill

When another skill needs to save or load a working file, shell out to scripts/skillz.sh. Three subcommands cover the surface area:

# write content to .skillz/<type>/<slug>
scripts/skillz.sh save_file note todo "things to do"

# write stdin (preferred for multi-line content)
some_command | scripts/skillz.sh save_file plan release-cut

# read it back
scripts/skillz.sh get_file note todo

# search by title and body, optionally narrowed to a type
scripts/skillz.sh search_files todo
scripts/skillz.sh search_files release --type plan

save_file echoes the resolved path on success so callers can quote it back to the user. get_file and search_files exit 1 when the target / matches don't exist, so a skill can branch on ||.

Storage root

By default the tree lives at $PWD/.skillz. Override with SKILLZ_DIR when you want a session-scoped or repo-scoped location:

SKILLZ_DIR="$HOME/.local/share/skillz" scripts/skillz.sh save_file note hello "hi"

Add .skillz/ to the repo's .gitignore if these artifacts shouldn't be committed.

Conventions for callers

• Pick a type once and reuse it. Don't invent a new <type> per artifact — types are buckets (note, plan, draft, log, transcript). Slugs are the unique part.
• Slugs are ASCII filename-safe. Allowed: [A-Za-z0-9._-] (letters, digits, dot, underscore, hyphen — kebab-case is the preferred style, but dots for extensions and uppercase are accepted). Anything else gets rejected with exit 2.
• No extension is required, but adding one (.md, .txt, .json) helps when a user opens the file directly.
• Prefer stdin over the inline content arg for anything multi-line — quoting gets fragile fast.
• Don't write through this skill for tracked source files. This is for skill scratch space, not the project tree.

Subcommand reference

save_file <type> <slug> [content]

Writes to .skillz/<type>/<slug>. If content is omitted, reads from stdin. Parent directories are created on demand. Prints the resolved path. Exit 2 on bad args.

get_file <type> <slug>

Prints .skillz/<type>/<slug> to stdout. Exit 1 if the file is missing, exit 2 on bad args.

search_files <query> [--type <type>]

Two-pass search:

1. Titles — case-insensitive find -iname "*<query>*" across the storage root (or one type if --type is supplied).
2. Bodies — grep -rIn for the same query against the same scope. Binary files are skipped.

Output is sectioned (## titles then ## bodies); body hits are in the standard <path>:<line>:<text> form so editors can jump to them. Exit 1 when neither pass finds anything.

Why a single skill for this

Without a shared convention, each skill that needs to persist working state ends up inventing its own (~/.cache/<skill>/, /tmp/<skill>-*, a hidden file in $PWD, …). That fragments where users go to find their stuff and makes cross-skill workflows harder ("the plan we drafted last turn"). Centralizing on .skillz/<type>/<slug> plus three verbs keeps the rest of the toolkit tiny.

When NOT to use this skill

• Application code, configs, or anything tracked in git. Edit those in place — this skill is for skill scratch space.
• Secrets. .skillz/ is plaintext on local disk. Use a secret manager (1Password, Bitwarden, age) instead.
• Cross-machine sync. Files live on the local filesystem only. If you need them elsewhere, copy them out by hand or commit deliberately.
• Large binaries. The body-grep pass skips binary files, but the storage layout isn't tuned for big artifacts.

Gotchas

• SKILLZ_DIR is captured at invocation, not export-once. Each shell-out re-resolves it, so changing the env between calls changes the storage root.
• Slug validation rejects spaces. Pass release-cut, not release cut. The regex is documented above.
• Body grep uses fixed-string matching (grep -F). Special characters (., *, [) are matched literally. That's deliberate — users searching for v1.2.3 get exactly what they typed, not a regex.
• No locking. Two skills writing the same <type>/<slug> concurrently will race; last writer wins. Use distinct slugs for parallel work.