Contributing

Thank you for your interest in contributing to bioconductor AI Agent Skills!

What You Can Contribute

New Skills

Have a workflow or pattern that would help others?

Quick start: Use the create-skill skill for guided help:

  • “Help me create a new skill for [purpose]”

Improve Existing Skills

Found a bug or enhancement?

  1. Test your changes on multiple projects
  2. Update SKILLS.md if description changes
  3. Document breaking changes clearly
  4. Submit PR

Documentation

Fix typos, clarify instructions, update outdated info - all welcome via PR.

Issues

Report bugs or suggest features via GitHub Issues.

How to Contribute

Small Changes (typos, doc fixes)

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Make your changes
  3. Submit pull request

New Skills or Major Changes

  1. Open an issue first to discuss your proposal and get feedback
  2. Fork and create a feature branch
  3. Develop following SKILL_STANDARD.md (use create-skill for new skills)
  4. Test thoroughly (on at least 3 different projects, checking edge cases)
  5. Update SKILLS.md using document-skill to include your skill
  6. Submit pull request

Skill Guidelines

Skills must conform strictly to AGENTS.md § Skill File Format and SKILL_STANDARD.md. Do not duplicate required fields or metadata definitions in your skill files.

Pull Request Process

We use a combination of automated tools and human review to ensure high-quality skills. Branch protection rules prevent even collaborators from committing directly to the devel branch, so all changes must go through a pull request.

When you submit a PR, you will receive automated feedback from three sources:

  1. Validate Skills (CI): A deterministic script that enforces structural and metadata standards (e.g., frontmatter requirements, SKILLS.md synchronization).
  2. Qualitative Skill Review (CI): An automated LLM that reviews your skill for qualitative guidelines (like agent-neutrality).
  3. GitHub Copilot PR Review: General AI feedback based on repository context.

Steps to merge

  1. Create clear PR description explaining what and why.
  2. Reference any related issues.
  3. Resolve all CI errors: Ensure that the “Validate Skills” and “Qualitative Skill Review” workflows both pass.
  4. Wait for human review and respond to feedback. Be patient - reviews typically take 2-7 days.
  5. Once approved, maintainers will merge your PR.

Questions?

  • Skill creation help: Use the create-skill skill
  • Validation help: Use the validate-skill skill to check if your skill meets standards
  • Setup questions: See instructions/ for your platform
  • General questions: GitHub Discussions
  • Bugs/features: GitHub Issues

License

By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the MIT License.

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