Agent Skills Injection

Inject custom skill files into GSD subagent prompts. Skills are read by agents at spawn time, giving them project-specific instructions beyond what CLAUDE.md provides.

Setting	Type	Default	Description
agent_skills	object	\{\}	Map of agent types to skill directory paths

Configuration

Add an agent_skills section to .planning/config.json mapping agent types to arrays of skill directory paths (relative to project root):

{
  "agent_skills": {
    "gsd-executor": ["skills/testing-standards", "skills/api-conventions"],
    "gsd-planner": ["skills/architecture-rules"],
    "gsd-verifier": ["skills/acceptance-criteria"]
  }
}

Each path must be a directory containing a SKILL.md file. Paths are validated for safety (no traversal outside project root).

Supported Agent Types

Any GSD agent type can receive skills. Common types:

• gsd-executor -- executes implementation plans
• gsd-planner -- creates phase plans
• gsd-checker -- verifies plan quality
• gsd-verifier -- post-execution verification
• gsd-researcher -- phase research
• gsd-project-researcher -- new-project research
• gsd-debugger -- diagnostic agents
• gsd-codebase-mapper -- codebase analysis
• gsd-advisor -- discuss-phase advisors
• gsd-ui-researcher -- UI design contract creation
• gsd-ui-checker -- UI spec verification
• gsd-roadmapper -- roadmap creation
• gsd-synthesizer -- research synthesis

How It Works

At spawn time, workflows call gsd-sdk query agent-skills <type> (or legacy node gsd-tools.cjs agent-skills <type>) to load configured skills. If skills exist for the agent type, they are injected as an <agent_skills> block in the Task() prompt:

<agent_skills>
Read these user-configured skills:
- @skills/testing-standards/SKILL.md
- @skills/api-conventions/SKILL.md
</agent_skills>

If no skills are configured, the block is omitted (zero overhead).

CLI

Set skills via the CLI:

gsd-sdk query config-set agent_skills.gsd-executor '["skills/my-skill"]'