Worked Example: The storm-questions Skill

This site's practice questions are generated by a Claude Code skill — a reusable capability bundle in .claude/skills/storm-questions/SKILL.md. Read it as a worked example of two things at once: how to package a multi-step methodology as a skill, and how QSTORM works in practice.

Why a skill (and not a prompt)

• Repeatability — the weekly vault-sync automation invokes it by name; no one re-explains the pipeline each run.
• Trigger clarity — the frontmatter description tells Claude when to reach for it ("create, extend, or refresh practice questions").
• Encoded constraints — the output format is load-bearing: the site's content pipeline parses ## Q1 blocks and **Q1: B.** answer lines. The skill states the contract so generated questions flow into the exam bank without glue code.

Anatomy of the skill

• Frontmatter — name + description (the trigger). Keep the description behavioral: what task patterns should activate it.
• Inputs section — points at the exam blueprints in the vault rather than duplicating them (single source of truth).
• Pipeline section — the seven QSTORM stages, each one imperative and checkable: personas, grounded curation, NBME-style drafting rules, blocking verification, difficulty calibration, assembly.
• Output contract — exact file path pattern, exact markdown shape, and the validation command (node scripts/build-content.mjs).

Key terms

• Skill — a markdown capability bundle (SKILL.md + frontmatter) Claude loads on demand for a matching task.
• Trigger description — the frontmatter sentence that tells the model when a skill applies.
• Output contract — the machine-parseable format a skill's product must satisfy so downstream pipelines can consume it.
• Blocking verification — a validation stage that can reject items, not just comment on them.

The actual skill

The canonical copy lives at .claude/skills/storm-questions/SKILL.md in the repo — open it side by side with storm-for-exams to map each instruction back to the research it encodes.