Skills
The HELIX skill is the agent instruction that reads project documents, finds missing or stale context, and proposes the next document update. This page assumes you know what an AI coding tool is; it explains what the HELIX skill does before that tool edits files. For the method behind the skill, see the thesis; for invocation reference, see /reference/skills/.
The core skill
The HELIX Skill
The core HELIX skill is helix. It reads an artifact set, meaning the HELIX
documents for a project or scope, compares those documents through the authority
hierarchy, and returns a plan for restoring coherence. It is not an execution
engine. It answers questions such as:
- Which upstream artifact governs this change?
- Which PRDs, feature specs, designs, tests, or deployment artifacts are now stale?
- Which new artifacts should the team write before code changes begin?
- Which contradictions should a human resolve before implementation proceeds?
The skill is portable because its minimum runtime contract is simple: read Markdown, search files, write Markdown when approved, and present a plan for review.
The full inputs, outputs, authority-hierarchy rule, open-question behavior, and runtime expectations live on the invocation reference; the authority hierarchy itself is canonical in the workflow page.
What the skill operates on
Artifact types define reusable HELIX document patterns. Concrete artifacts are the documents inside a project. HELIX’s own documents are public so maintainers and users can inspect how HELIX applies the method to itself.
Runtime packages are not forks
HELIX can be packaged for different runtimes, but the methodology should not
fork by platform. A DDx package, a Claude Code skill, or a Databricks integration should wrap the same source content and skill contract.
Legacy wrappers
HELIX ships exactly one skill: skills/helix/SKILL.md.
Operators invoke modes by intent (e.g., “use HELIX to frame this”) or with
the slash form /helix <mode>. Earlier shapes of the project shipped
multiple helix-* skills; the umbrella router now subsumes those.
The durable public concepts are:
- Artifact-type catalog
- Concrete governing artifacts
- Authority-hierarchy reconciliation
- One HELIX skill
- Runtime integrations that execute or package the method