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devin-skill-valid

Devin-native SKILL.md frontmatter must use Devin's documented field shapes
Severity error (auto)
Autofix -
Since v0.20.0
Repo Types devin
Category Devin

Why

Skills in .devin/skills/ use Devin's native dialect. Unlike portable Agent Skills under .agents/skills/ and .windsurf/skills/, their frontmatter is optional and the directory name supplies the default name. When frontmatter is present, however, values with the wrong shape can keep tools, permissions, activation, or delegation settings from taking effect.

This rule validates Devin's documented fields while tolerating unknown keys for forward compatibility. The skill body still receives skillsaw's shared content-quality and security checks.

Severity

Malformed YAML and invalid field types are errors. Setting both a named agent and subagent: true is informational: Devin uses the named agent, so the finding explains the precedence without treating a documented combination as invalid.

Examples

Bad — tool permissions and triggers have the wrong shapes:

---
allowed-tools: 4
permissions:
  allow: Read(src/**)
triggers:
  - autonomous
---

Good — a configured native skill:

---
argument-hint: "[path]"
model: sonnet
allowed-tools: Bash(openspec:*)
permissions:
  allow:
    - Read(src/**)
triggers:
  - user
  - model
---

Review the selected path and report actionable findings.

A native skill with no frontmatter is also valid.

How to fix

  • Use strings for name, description, argument-hint, model, and agent, and a boolean for subagent.
  • Make allowed-tools a string or a list of strings.
  • Make permissions an object; its allow, deny, and ask values must be lists of strings.
  • Make triggers a non-empty list containing only user and/or model.
  • When both delegation fields are present, remove subagent: true if the named agent already expresses the intended behavior.

Configuration

rules:
  devin-skill-valid:
    enabled: auto  # true | false | auto
    severity: error

Run skillsaw explain devin-skill-valid to see this documentation and the rule's effective configuration in your terminal.