AI Skills

A skill is a small, self-contained document that teaches an AI assistant how to work in a particular area. Tools such as Claude Code load a skill automatically when its description matches what you are doing, giving the assistant durable, concept-level context it would otherwise lack — for example, how Gum's file formats are structured, how the layout system behaves, or when to reach for a Forms control versus a raw visual.

Gum ships a set of consumer-facing skills you can drop into your own project so your assistant understands Gum without you having to explain it every time.

Getting the skills

The skills live in the gum-skills/ folder of the Gum repository. To use them, copy the skills you want into your project's .claude/skills/ folder (or your machine-wide ~/.claude/skills/ folder so they apply everywhere).

A good starting set is the overview skill plus whichever topical skills match your work — for example layout, Forms controls, and the file format. Each skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with the standard frontmatter your assistant uses to decide when the skill is relevant.

The gum-skills/ folder is being populated incrementally. If a skill you expect is not there yet, check the folder for the current set. These consumer skills are distinct from the engine-internal skills under Gum's own .claude/skills/, which describe how to work on Gum rather than with it.

Skills, the MCP server, and GumCli

The three AI pieces reinforce each other:

• Skills give your assistant durable context that loads automatically and shapes what it writes.
• The MCP Documentation Server lets it look up authoritative, current details on demand.
• GumCli lets it generate code, validate the project, and verify the result.

Using all three together gives an assistant the best chance of producing correct Gum UI on the first try.