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DisCo Meta Skills

DisCo bundles 15 construction workflows for Creator mode. These are Creator-only meta skills: they teach an agent how to distill, verify, maintain, and export Researcher-facing operating skills. They are also portable Agent Skills, so an agent that does not run the DisCo CLI can follow the same evidence, review, and handoff process.

This is a different corpus from the AREX-Skill Library: the library contains Researcher-facing operating skills, while these skills construct or maintain them.

Supported Meta Skills

The source of truth is cli/packages/coding-agent/src/disco/skills/. The 15 root directories below declare metadata.disco-role: meta and are available to Creator mode.

Shared Construction

Skill Purpose
distill-ml-knowledge Canonical Creator entry point; identifies a source or task anchor and drives scope, ground, construct, and verify.
design-meta-skill Designs and validates a reusable meta-skill bundle for an evidence-backed recurring construction gap.

Repository Skills

Skill Purpose
prepare-repo-skill-env Creates or verifies an isolated, backend-aware Python inspection environment for a repository.
create-repo-skill Turns repository evidence into a self-contained operating skill.
verify-repo-skill Runs usability, evidence, static, native-check, and import-readiness gates.
refresh-repo-skill Updates an existing repository skill after upstream drift.
extend-repo-skill Adds a new workflow area or deeper coverage to an existing repository skill.
import-repo-skills-to-agent Exports selected managed repository skills and a scoped router to another agent.

Paper Skills

Skill Purpose
create-paper-skills Entry point for generating and validating reusable skills for paper replication.
paper-skills-distiller Orchestrates paper source resolution, skill generation, recovery, analysis, and refinement.
plan-paper-skill-modules Builds a paper profile, module plan, and module documents.
create-paper-module-skill Converts a module document into a validated module skill.
prepare-paper-recovery-env Records bounded package, model, data, and runtime evidence for recovery.
recover-paper-result Runs a bounded recovery experiment using generated skills.
analyze-paper-recovery Compares recovery evidence with the paper target and returns accept/refine/blocker feedback.

The sibling repo-skills-router is an operating skill for Researcher-mode progressive routing, so it is not part of this meta-skill list and should not be copied as part of a portable Creator installation.

Use Meta Skills in DisCo

Start a new Creator session with disco --creator, or use --creator -p for a one-shot request. When the entry point is known, invoke it explicitly with /skill:<name>. Creator can also select an entry skill from a natural-language request, but explicit invocation makes reusable commands easier to audit.

Most users call only the entry skills below. Supporting skills are loaded by the selected workflow; they are not a checklist that must be invoked manually. For example, create-repo-skill, refresh-repo-skill, and extend-repo-skill use environment preparation and verification as needed, while create-paper-skills delegates the complete paper pipeline to paper-skills-distiller.

Distill ML knowledge

Use the canonical entry point when the source type or construction strategy still needs to be selected:

disco --creator -p "/skill:distill-ml-knowledge identify <source or task anchor>; scope, ground, construct, and verify the operating skill graph."

The workflow reuses an existing repository or paper construction path when one fits. It routes to design-meta-skill only when the evidence shows a recurring construction capability gap.

Create a repository skill

Create and verify an operating skill graph from a local repository:

disco --creator -p "/skill:create-repo-skill Create and verify a repository skill for /absolute/path/to/repo."

Add with auto decide and auto import only when Creator may select the extraction scope and import the graph after successful verification without asking again. Otherwise, scope and deployment remain approval boundaries.

Create paper-replication skills

From an AREX-Skill checkout, copy the generic starter configuration and edit at least workspace_root, paper_slug, and paper_source. The optional original_repo_source accepts a local path, Git URL, none, or unknown:

cp examples/creator/paper-to-skills/distiller-run-config.toml \
  /absolute/path/to/distiller-run-config.toml

disco --creator -p "/skill:create-paper-skills Use Distiller to generate and verify paper-replication skills for each run in this config. config_path: /absolute/path/to/distiller-run-config.toml"

paper_source can be a local PDF or text file, a direct PDF URL, an arXiv URL or identifier, or a paper title. create-paper-skills delegates to paper-skills-distiller, which orchestrates source resolution, module planning, module-skill generation, bounded runtime preparation, recovery, analysis, and refinement. Do not manually invoke each supporting paper skill for an ordinary run.

With the starter's default output paths, generated skills are written under <workspace_root>/<paper_slug>/skills/ and final reports under <workspace_root>/<paper_slug>/distillation/reports/final/. Expensive recovery and final deployment still require the approvals defined by the configuration and workflow. See the Paper-to-Skills example and complete workflow for the input contract and lifecycle.

Refresh or extend a repository skill

Use refresh-repo-skill when upstream code, APIs, documentation, configuration, dependencies, or behavior changed and the existing skill may be stale:

disco --creator -p "/skill:refresh-repo-skill Refresh /absolute/path/to/existing-skill against the current repository at /absolute/path/to/repo."

Use extend-repo-skill when the existing skill is still correct but needs a new capability or deeper coverage:

disco --creator -p "/skill:extend-repo-skill Add streaming inference coverage to /absolute/path/to/existing-skill using /absolute/path/to/repo as evidence."

Both workflows preserve correct existing guidance, run verification, and keep deployment or overwrite as an explicit approval boundary.

Export repository skills to another agent

Export selected skills from DisCo's managed collection with their scoped router. For Codex's recommended user-level skill directory:

disco --creator -p "/skill:import-repo-skills-to-agent import vllm and sglang to ~/.agents"

Use ~/.claude for Claude Code. The workflow resolves exact skill IDs, asks before replacing existing target content, stages and validates the merged collection, and restores the previous target if the transaction fails.

When To Install Them Outside DisCo

DisCo already bundles these workflows. Install the portable meta skills into another compatible agent when that agent should create, verify, refresh, extend, or export skills but cannot run the DisCo CLI. Install DisCo itself when you need mode-specific skill visibility, /creator and /researcher, session isolation, the managed library, locked imports, or built-in tools.

Copying these directories does not reproduce DisCo's mode/session boundary; the target agent must follow the role and approval rules in the skill text.

Install Into Codex

The current Codex user-level convention is ~/.agents/skills. The command below copies only the 15 meta-skill directories; it does not copy the router, the 1,000 repository skill graphs and their generated sub-skills, or any README:

git clone https://github.com/VectorSpaceLab/AREX-Skill.git
cd AREX-Skill
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
for skill in \
  analyze-paper-recovery \
  create-paper-module-skill \
  create-paper-skills \
  create-repo-skill \
  distill-ml-knowledge \
  design-meta-skill \
  extend-repo-skill \
  import-repo-skills-to-agent \
  paper-skills-distiller \
  plan-paper-skill-modules \
  prepare-paper-recovery-env \
  prepare-repo-skill-env \
  recover-paper-result \
  refresh-repo-skill \
  verify-repo-skill; do
  cp -R "cli/packages/coding-agent/src/disco/skills/$skill" ~/.agents/skills/
done

For a project-local Codex installation, replace ~/.agents/skills with <project>/.agents/skills and run the command from the repository checkout. ~/.codex/skills may still be supplied explicitly for an older Codex version, but it is a legacy compatibility target rather than the recommended new path.

Install Into Claude Code

Claude Code's user-level skills directory is ~/.claude/skills:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
for skill in \
  analyze-paper-recovery \
  create-paper-module-skill \
  create-paper-skills \
  create-repo-skill \
  distill-ml-knowledge \
  design-meta-skill \
  extend-repo-skill \
  import-repo-skills-to-agent \
  paper-skills-distiller \
  plan-paper-skill-modules \
  prepare-paper-recovery-env \
  prepare-repo-skill-env \
  recover-paper-result \
  refresh-repo-skill \
  verify-repo-skill; do
  cp -R "cli/packages/coding-agent/src/disco/skills/$skill" ~/.claude/skills/
done

Review the target directory before copying. Existing same-name skills are overwritten by cp -R; use a temporary directory and compare first when the target contains local edits. Remove only the listed directories to uninstall this bundle. Do not remove a shared agents/openai.yaml, router, or unrelated user skill.

Adapt Deployment Paths

The copied workflows describe DisCo's live destinations: ~/.disco/agent/skills/ for managed Creator or reusable operating skills and <project-dir>/.agents/skills/ for project-bound operating graphs. When the target agent, rather than DisCo, should own a generated skill, map the managed destination to that agent's user-level skill root. For Codex this is ~/.agents/skills/; for Claude Code it is ~/.claude/skills/. Keep project-bound or uncertain operating graphs project-local, keep one graph in one scope, and request approval for the exact destination and any overwrite.

Repository graphs remain a special case. Prefer import-repo-skills-to-agent, which preserves the sibling repo-skills/ and repo-skills-router/ layout. Its bundled transactional helper merges exact repository and assignment records, regenerates both the root repository-index.jsonl and scoped router, validates the staged and installed collection, and restores the previous target on failure. Resume an interrupted transaction with the exact path reported by the helper. Do not flatten repository skills into the managed root, hand-merge router Markdown, or send their routing metadata through the generic operating-graph importer.

What The Copy Does Not Provide

Portable meta skills do not install DisCo's TypeScript runtime, tools, metadata.disco-role filtering, mode-specific prompts, automatic import coordination, or session manager. They also do not make another agent automatically hide operating skills while a construction workflow runs. The bundled transaction helpers must be invoked explicitly if they are applicable to the target layout. Keep operating skills and meta skills in separate directories where the target agent supports that distinction, and ask for approval before expensive setup, generated-skill import, or overwrites as required by the workflow text.

For the full runtime with Creator/Researcher isolation, install the disco CLI and then install the AREX-Skill Library separately.