Skills
Reusable capabilities that describe what an agent needs to be able to do.
- Analyse a defect
- Update traceability
- Prepare a review package
- Derive tests
- Create a requirements change proposal
Skills, Rules & Hooks Engineering
Translate the process into instructions and controls agents can execute.
Process documentation is written for people. An engineering agent needs the same intent expressed in forms that can guide and constrain machine execution.
Effective process
Skillswhat an agent must be able to do
Rulescontextual constraints on how
Hooksdeterministic checks at defined points
Overview
Skills, rules, and hooks turn the operating model into executable agent context.
Skills describe reusable capabilities. Rules capture contextual constraints and instructions. Hooks are deterministic checks or actions triggered at defined points in the workflow. Together they express process intent in a form an agent can act on.
Objective
Derive reusable agent behavior and controls from the governed engineering process rather than maintaining a separate set of unmanaged prompts and scripts.
How the service works
Five steps from process elements to governed agent context.
Select process elements
Identify the activities, practices, work products, rules, and interfaces relevant to the agent workflow.
Derive skills
Translate process responsibilities into reusable agent capabilities.
Derive rules
Capture contextual instructions and constraints that govern how the work should be performed.
Identify hooks
Determine which rules can be enforced at specific execution points.
Package and govern
Structure the resulting skills, rules, and hooks so they can be versioned and changed together with the operating model.
Concrete examples
What each mechanism looks like in practice.
Rules
Contextual constraints and instructions governing how the work should be performed.
- Use only approved repositories
- Update affected trace links
- Do not modify a safety requirement without approval
- Follow the effective process for the selected product context
Hooks
Deterministic checks or actions triggered at defined points in the workflow.
- Before completion, verify tests passed
- Before merge, verify required review
- Before release, verify evidence exists
- Before a safety decision, stop for human approval
Deliverables
- Agent skill catalogue
- Contextual rule set
- Hook definitions
- Mappings from process elements to agent controls
- Implementation specifications
- Governance recommendations
Benefits
- Derive agent behavior from the governed process rather than ad-hoc prompts.
- Keep instructions and controls versioned with the operating model.
- Reuse skills across workflows and teams.
- Make constraints explicit rather than implicit in a prompt.
Enforcement side
Deterministic Control Implementation
Hooks that can be checked objectively become machine-enforced gates rather than guidance.