Best Practices Agent Skill

Best Practices

Answer two questions from current sources: what's the recommended way, and what bites people (the gotchas and pitfalls around it). A how-to without its pitfalls is half an answer.

Two-Phase Rule

• Phase 1: Research. Dispatch find-docs and/or WebSearch queries.
• Phase 2: Synthesize and act. Starts only after Phase 1 results arrive.

The user's argument may be a question or an imperative. Imperatives ("refine X", "set up Y") determine what Phase 2 does, not whether Phase 1 happens. Phase 1 always runs.

Rationalizations that precede skipped research:

| Thought | Reality |

| ------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| "I already know this" | Training data goes stale. Config keys get renamed, APIs get deprecated. |

| "The user said to act" | The imperative scopes Phase 2, it does not eliminate Phase 1. |

| "This is a simple lookup" | A 30-second search costs nothing. A wrong recommendation costs a debugging round-trip. |

Workflow

1. Identify Research Targets

Break the topic into 2-4 specific queries. Dedicate at least one query to pitfalls ("common mistakes with X", "X gotchas in production"): pitfalls live in issue threads, migration guides, and post-mortems, not in getting-started docs, so a how-to query won't surface them. For single-library lookups, call find-docs or WebSearch directly without subagents.

2. Parallel Research

Dispatch one subagent per query in a single message so they run in parallel, passing model: sonnet on each Agent call so the bulk research stays cheap while orchestration and synthesis keep the session model. Each uses find-docs (Context7) and WebSearch. Be concrete in each subagent prompt: pass library names, version constraints, and the user's specific context. Vague prompts produce vague results.

<subagent_prompt_template>

<context>

The user wants to [user's task]. We need the latest, authoritative guidance on [specific aspect].

</context>

<task>

Research best practices for: [specific query]

Use the find-docs skill to look up [library/tool] documentation, then use WebSearch to find recent guides and recommendations for "[specific search query]".

</task>

<output_format>

Report:

• Recommended approach with rationale
• Concrete code/config examples
• Every pitfall you found, including ones you are uncertain about or consider minor. Your job is coverage; synthesis will rank and filter. Note each pitfall's consequence (what breaks, what it costs)
• Sources consulted (with publication dates)

Keep it under 400 words. If space runs short, compress the explanations rather than dropping pitfalls. If you cannot find authoritative guidance on a point, say so explicitly rather than guessing.

</output_format>

</subagent_prompt_template>

3. Synthesize

After all subagents return, merge using these criteria:

• Deduplicate overlapping recommendations
• Rank by authority: official docs > well-known guides > blog posts > training data
• Flag conflicts with attribution (which source said what)
• Discard stale results: a 2022 guide for a fast-moving framework is noise

If a subagent failed or returned empty, note the gap and proceed with the results you have. Do not block synthesis waiting for a straggler.

4. Present Findings

Deliver to the user in this structure:

• Recommended Approach: the primary recommendation with rationale
• Key Patterns: concrete code/config examples the user can apply immediately
• Gotchas & Pitfalls: cover every recommendation above, not just the primary one. For each: the mistake, its consequence, and how to avoid it
• Sources: what was consulted, so the user can dig deeper

Constraints

• 2-4 focused subagents, not more. Each carries ~20K tokens of startup overhead. Fewer focused queries beat many shallow ones.
• User-provided URLs are additive. If the user provided specific URLs, fetch those too, but they supplement research, not replace it.
• Context7 quota limits exist. If find-docs fails with quota errors, fall back to WebSearch only and note the limitation.
• If both find-docs and WebSearch fail, say so explicitly rather than falling back to training data.