feat(skills): add disable-model-invocation flag to omit user-only skills from the agent#309
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Skills marked with `disable-model-invocation: true` remain loadable and user-invocable via /skill:name, but are omitted from the model-facing skill index.
Skills with disable-model-invocation set are filtered out of the <available_skills> block so the model never auto-triggers them.
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Motivation
Every loaded skill is currently advertised to the model in the system prompt's
<available_skills>block, so the model may proactively read and apply anyskill. Some skills should be user-only — invocable explicitly via
/skill:<name>but never surfaced to (or auto-triggered by) the model. This isimportant for skills with side effects (releases, deployments, messaging) or
workflows that should only run when the user asks for them.
Changes
disable_model_invocationfield to theSkilldataclass, parsed from adisable-model-invocation: truefrontmatter key inSKILL.md(
src/tau_coding/skills.py).format_skills_for_prompt()so they neverappear in the system prompt (
src/tau_coding/system_prompt.py), and out ofbuild_skill_index()for consistency.expand_skill_command()looks skills up from thefull loaded set, so
/skill:<name>still expands a disabled skill.website/content/guides/skills-and-prompts.md.Behavior
/skill:<name>worksdisable-model-invocation: truedisable-model-invocation: falseA skills directory containing only disabled skills yields no
<available_skills>block at all.
Tests / checks
Built TDD-first (red → green) with atomic commits. Added focused tests in
tests/test_skills.py(frontmatter parsing,/skill:still expands disabledskills, index omission) and
tests/test_system_prompt.py(prompt exclusion,all-disabled → no section).
uv run pytest— 710 passeduv run ruff check .— passeduv run ruff format --check .— passeduv run mypy— no issuesCompatibility
Backward compatible. The new field defaults to
False, so existing skills withno frontmatter key behave exactly as before.