Task skills

Task skills are structured execution workflows installed by carrick init to guide AI coding agents through multi-step cross-service evaluations. Each skill executes a deterministic sequence of Carrick tool calls, applies unambiguous classification terms, and produces a structured findings report with exact source file and line locations.

carrick init installs four specialized skills:

Skill	Invocation trigger	Tools executed
carrick-impact	Evaluated before modifying or deleting routes, handlers, response shapes, events, or shared functions; also triggered by “who calls this?” or “what breaks if I change it?”	get_operation, get_callers, check_compatibility, and carrick check <file> --recheck --json for modified files
carrick-reuse	Evaluated at the conclusion of tasks that add or modify functions; also triggered by “does this already exist?” or “where have we built this twice?”	find_similar (targeted or project audit mode)
carrick-drift	Evaluated before altering request or response types, or when investigating unresolved compatibility errors	get_service_graph, followed by get_contract_pair per service pair
carrick-census	Evaluated for exhaustive discovery queries (“find every place that does X”)	search_by_intent across dual phrasings, paged to completion

Design principles

Task skills operate under strict reporting rules to ensure reliable agent output:

• Tool-backed evidence: Every finding derives directly from a Carrick tool response or local CLI check. Agents verify returned spans in source code before classifying them.
• Strict single-class assignment: Every row in a findings table receives exactly one classification term determined by deterministic evaluation rules.
• Explicit coverage accounting: Reports state the number of returned rows alongside the total scanned candidate count, making partial or truncated results immediately visible.
• Non-destructive reporting: Skills do not modify source code autonomously. They present findings and offer to create GitHub issues for confirmed items.

File locations and ownership tracking

carrick init writes byte-identical skill files for supported agent harnesses:

.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md

Each skill file includes a cryptographic digest in its footer:

<!-- carrick:skill sha256:0123456789ab -->

Carrick uses this digest to track file ownership:

• Matching digest: The file has not been modified locally and will be updated automatically by newer CLI versions.
• Modified content with marker: The file contains local edits, which Carrick preserves during subsequent updates while logging a notice.
• Missing marker: The file is unmanaged and remains untouched.

When you run carrick remove, the CLI deletes only unedited skill files whose digests match package defaults.

Maintaining skill files

When you upgrade the CLI (npm install -g carrick@latest), existing workspace files remain unchanged until refreshed.

Use the following tools to maintain skill files:

• carrick doctor: Identifies missing skills, modified files, and outdated versions.
• carrick init: Refreshes unedited skill files and hook definitions while preserving customised files.

Automated end-of-task reuse nudge

Carrick automatically prompts agents to check for duplicate implementations after adding new functions:

1. Detection: On file modifications, carrick check <file> --recheck identifies newly declared functions not present in the index (recheck.new_functions).
2. Session tracking: carrick hook post-edit records newly introduced function names in ~/.carrick/sessions/.
3. Agent notification: When the task finishes, carrick hook stop (Claude Code) or carrick hook user-prompt (Codex) outputs a single reminder prompting the agent to run carrick-reuse on the new functions.

The notification runs once per set of functions, preventing duplicate reminders during subsequent turns.

Related

• MCP tools documents the complete toolset executed by task skills.
• Connecting your agent explains agent harness configuration.
• CLI covers carrick doctor, carrick init, and carrick remove.