Make a Skill From Their Writing
Point the model at an expert's published work, have it write a skill from it, then run your drafts through that skill before you ship.
The prompt
"make me a skill out of someone's publicly shared knowledge" (Emil Kowalski, paraphrasing the method)
The method: send the model links to someone's articles on a subject, such as marketing for developers, and ask it to write a skill from them. Later, before sending a marketing email, ask it to run the draft through that skill and show how to improve it. It works for writing, design or anything else with good public material. Source: X/@emilkowalski, 2026-07-17
Why it works
Asking a model to "make this better" gets its average idea of better. A skill built from one expert's writing replaces that average with a specific standard: their rules, their examples, their priorities. Writing the skill once also compresses many articles into something short enough to load every time, so the review is cheap to repeat. Choosing whose writing to distill is where taste enters; the model cannot do that part for you.
When to use it
- Any review you repeat: copy, emails, interface details, motion, code style.
- When you know whose judgment you trust on a subject but cannot carry all of it in your head.
Respect the source. Keep the skill for your own review rather than republishing someone's work as your product, and credit them in the skill.
Which skill runs it
skill-creator writes and tests the skill. Several of Kevin's design skills began this way, from public writing by designers Kevin trusts.
Timeline
- 2026-11-03 | Page created from the skill-from-public-writing method. Source: X/@emilkowalski, 2026-07-17