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name: external-write description: Write files outside workspace sandbox (e.g., ~/.claude/skills). Use when creating/editing personal agent skills or other files that must exist outside the current workspace.

Skill: External Write (staging + rsync)

Use when

• Creating/editing files outside workspace (e.g., personal skills in ~/.claude/skills/).

Rules

• Stage everything in _tmp_external_write/<target-name>/.
• Publish with rsync.
• Always clean up the staging directory.
• Open all relevant published files with code.

Procedure

1) Stage inside workspace

Create files under:

• _tmp_external_write/<target-name>/...

Edit normally (workspace tools), no heredocs.

2) Publish with rsync

Use trailing slashes so contents sync correctly:

• mkdir -p <dest>
• rsync -a --delete _tmp_external_write/<target-name>/ <dest>/

Examples:

• Destination (personal skills): ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>
• Command:
  • mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>
  • rsync -a --delete _tmp_external_write/<skill-name>/ ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/

3) Clean up (always)

After publish (even on failure), delete staging:

• rm -rf _tmp_external_write/<target-name>

If doing multi-step shell work, prefer a trap:

• trap 'rm -rf _tmp_external_write/<target-name>' EXIT

4) Open published files for user review

After publishing, open destination files with code so user can verify:

• code <dest>/SKILL.md <dest>/...

Example:

• code ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md

Notes

• Files in the destination are not automatically used just because they exist; link resources from SKILL.md if you want them reliably discoverable.