Customize Your Skills

Guide users through personalizing their Tandem skills for dramatically better results. Skills work out of the box, but they work 10x better when customized.

Language

See METHODOLOGY.md language mirror rule. Reply in the user's language.

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The Golden Rule

The more context you give a skill, the less you repeat yourself. Spend 2 minutes customizing now, save hours later.

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Workflow

Step 1: Choose What to Customize

AskUserQuestion: "Which area would you like to customize?"
Options: [
  "Email skills (tone, signature, style)",
  "Research skills (industry, sources, depth)",
  "Meeting skills (calendar, formality, prep style)",
  "Creative skills (colors, design preferences, style)",
  "Productivity skills (work hours, priorities, review schedule)",
  "Document skills (formatting, templates, brand)",
  "Show me all customization options",
  "I'll name a specific skill"
]

Step 2: Walk Through Customization

For each skill area, present the highest-impact customizations:

Email Skills (email-draft, email-triage, email-followup):

• Your name and preferred sign-off
• Default tone (formal / casual / friendly professional)
• Signature block
• Filler phrases you want removed
• Language-specific preferences (Hebrew register, Russian formality)

Research Skills (topic-research, daily-briefing, competitor-watch):

• Your industry and niche
• Preferred news sources and publications
• Default research depth (quick / detailed / comprehensive)
• Topics to always monitor

Meeting Skills (meeting-prep, meeting-debrief):

• Calendar source and connector
• Preferred meeting prep depth
• Typical meeting types (internal, client, investor)
• Key contacts to always include context for

Creative Skills (visualize, brainstorm, prompt-master, nano-banana):

• Preferred color scheme (dark / light)
• Brand colors (hex values)
• Default visualization type
• Preferred brainstorming framework

Productivity Skills (daily-plan, task-manager, weekly-review, productivity-os):

• Work hours and timezone
• Recurring meetings to skip in planning
• Priority rules (what counts as urgent)
• Review schedule (daily / weekly cadence)

Document Skills (presentation, report-writer, budget-wizard):

• Brand colors and fonts
• Default presentation type
• Budget categories to pre-populate
• Currency and locale

Step 3: Save Preferences

Store customizations in the appropriate MEMORY.md files:

• Personal preferences: ~/Tandem/memory/preferences.md
• Skill-specific: ~/Tandem/[category]/MEMORY.md

Confirm what was saved and how it will be used.

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Quick Start (Show All)

If user selects "Show me all customization options", present this summary:

Skill	Top Customization	Where It's Stored
email-draft	Name, sign-off, tone, signature	~/Tandem/email/MEMORY.md
email-triage	Priority rules, VIP senders	~/Tandem/email/MEMORY.md
daily-briefing	Industry, sources, timezone	~/Tandem/research/MEMORY.md
topic-research	Default depth, preferred sources	~/Tandem/research/MEMORY.md
competitor-watch	Competitors list, tracking dimensions	~/Tandem/research/MEMORY.md
meeting-prep	Calendar, key contacts, prep depth	~/Tandem/meetings/MEMORY.md
presentation	Brand colors, default type, slide count	~/Tandem/documents/MEMORY.md
budget-wizard	Currency, categories, locale	~/Tandem/documents/MEMORY.md
visualize	Color scheme, palette, output mode	~/Tandem/creative/MEMORY.md
brainstorm	Preferred framework, evaluation criteria	~/Tandem/creative/MEMORY.md
daily-plan	Work hours, priority rules	~/Tandem/tasks/MEMORY.md
task-manager	Categories, default board layout	~/Tandem/tasks/MEMORY.md

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Anti-Patterns

• Do NOT modify SKILL.md files directly — store preferences in MEMORY.md
• Do NOT ask for all customizations at once — one area at a time
• Do NOT require customization before using a skill — all skills work with defaults

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Error Handling

• MEMORY.md doesn't exist: Create it with the first preference
• User unsure what to customize: Suggest starting with their most-used skill
• Conflicting preferences: Ask which takes priority and note the resolution