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SKILL.md is a single document you hand to a coding agent. It teaches the agent to install Reticle, wire it into your app, and then drive a verification loop properly. Without you explaining any of it.
That URL is live and returns the current version. Paste it into your agent and say “read this and set up Reticle”.
You often do not need it. npx reticle init writes a /reticle slash command for Claude Code automatically, and installs agent rule files for Claude and Cursor. The SKILL file is for agents that init cannot configure, for a from-scratch install, or when you want the agent to have the full protocol in context rather than a summary.

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It has two modes, and it picks one itself

The first thing the document tells an agent to do is check which situation it is in:
  • Not found → run Setup mode: register the MCP server, install the SDK, wire the entry point, validate the connection, and prove it on one flow while the user watches.
  • Found → run Test mode: connect, orient, decide what to test, drive it, report.
One document, two jobs, no flag for you to remember. The second time you invoke it, it skips straight to the useful part.

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What Setup mode actually does

That last row is the one that matters. Plenty of installs “succeed” and then nothing works. The skill does not consider itself finished until a real flow has produced a real verdict.

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What Test mode actually does

Five phases: connect, orient, decide what to test, run the tests, report. The reporting format is specified, which matters more than it sounds. An agent left to summarise freely will summarise optimistically. The rules it operates under are the same ones these docs keep repeating:
  • Only reticle_act_and_wait and reticle_assert produce a verdict.
  • verified: "unknown" is not a pass.
  • Never weaken a check to make it pass.

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Feedback is the first section, on purpose

Before setup, before anything, the document tells the agent that reporting problems is part of the job. And that this applies during setup, which is where Reticle is most likely to break and least likely to hear about it. It even covers the case where nothing is installed yet:
That works with no daemon running, which is the entire point. The install that failed halfway is the one worth hearing about, and in that state the MCP tools do not exist.
It also draws a line that saves everyone time: report defects in Reticle. A bug found in the app under test is Reticle working correctly, and belongs in the answer to the user.

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It ships inside the package too

SKILL.md is bundled into @reticlehq/server at publish time, alongside a copy of this entire documentation site. So an agent that has already installed Reticle can read it from disk without a network round trip:
Handy in a sandbox with no outbound network, which is an increasingly common place for an agent to live.

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Should you read it?

Probably not, unless you are curious. It is roughly 60 KB and written for an agent, which means it is exhaustive in the way a runbook is exhaustive. Every fallback, every framework, every failure mode spelled out rather than summarised. If you want the human version of the same material, you are already in it:

Agentic install

What reticle init does, with real output.

Manual install

Every step init cannot automate.

Agent cheat sheet

The one-screen version of the drive loop.

Best practices

The habits that make verdicts worth trusting.
Last modified on August 14, 2026