---

name: skill-source-citations description: Requires durable citations when authoring or researching Agent Skills—maintain references/sources.md per skill, link external research, and record provenance in PRs. Use when creating skills, updating SKILL.md, doing web research for skills, or auditing missing sources. license: MIT type: governance metadata: author: skill-steward version: "1.0.0" category: marketplace

Skill source citations

Rule: Knowledge borrowed from docs, papers, other repos, or chat research must be saved as links in the skill tree—not only in conversation.

When to use

• Creating or editing any skills/{name}/SKILL.md
• Researching harness/MCP/marketplace patterns before writing a skill
• Reviewing a PR that adds procedural claims without sources

Per-skill file (required in skill_steward)

Maintain skills/{name}/references/sources.md:

# Sources

| Topic | URL | Used for |
|-------|-----|----------|
| Agent Skills spec | https://agentskills.io/ | Frontmatter rules |
| … | … | … |

## Changelog

- 2026-05-29: initial citations

Template: citation-template.md.

Workflow (create or update skill)

1. Before writing — list URLs you will rely on in references/sources.md (can start sparse).
2. In SKILL.md — link to spec/docs inline where non-obvious; prefer references/ for long material.
3. After research — append new rows + changelog entry; never leave “we read X” only in chat.
4. In PR — one line in description: “Sources updated in references/sources.md.”
5. Validate — pnpm run validate warns if sources.md is missing.

What to cite

Cite	Example
Official specs	agentskills.io, Cursor/Claude/Codex docs
Papers / research	SkillOpt, SkillsBench arXiv
Reference implementations	product MCPs, Codex plugin-eval
Blog/guides	Only if procedure is non-obvious; prefer primary docs

Do not cite ephemeral chat URLs or private tokens.

Cross-skill index

Guild-wide references: docs/STANDARDS.mdx, DESIGN_FAQ.mdx.

Related skills

Task	Skill
Scaffold skill	skill-authoring-lifecycle
Evaluate / improve	skill-eval-improve
Spec audit	skill-authoring-lifecycle

Sources discipline (this skill)

See references/sources.md.

Install

npx skills add arenukvern/skill_steward --skill skill-source-citations