agent-format_skill

Overview

This skill defines a standard formatting system for agent messages intended to be scannable across chat apps like Telegram, Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp. It provides status indicators, progress bars, sparklines, and monospace table patterns to create a consistent visual hierarchy. The baseline improves readability and speeds up decision-making in threaded or fast-moving conversations.

How this skill works

The skill prescribes a set of symbols and micro-patterns agents use when reporting status, progress, and trends. Agents prepend concise signals (emoji) for immediate context, include compact progress bars or sparklines for quantitative cues, and use monospace tables or simple dividers for structured details. Messages are intentionally short and ordered from most important to least important so they are easy to scan on mobile and desktop chat clients.

When to use it

• Status updates where recipients need a fast, at-a-glance understanding
• Progress reporting for tasks, sprints, or deployment steps
• Incident triage to surface severity and next steps quickly
• Standups or weekly summaries to compress information into compact blocks
• Automated agent replies that must be readable on multiple chat platforms

Best practices

• Lead with the highest signal first (status emoji or headline) before details
• Keep each bullet or line short; assume scanning rather than deep reading
• Use the defined emoji set for consistency: 🟢 🟡 🔴 🔥 ⚡
• Prefer monospace blocks for tables and progress bars so alignment holds
• Reserve detailed explanations for linked resources, not the main message

Example use cases

• A CI bot posts build status: 🔴 Blocked • Tests failing • Owner: CI
• Daily standup summary with progress bars and sparkline of weekly velocity
• Incident alert showing severity emoji, short impact note, and next step
• Release announcement listing features as Done with checkmarks and owners
• Backup or archive report showing completion percentage with a progress bar