The thing you keep re-explaining

Every time you ingest footage you say the same six things.

Copy from the card, checksum it, make proxies at this codec, this naming, log what arrived, never touch the originals.

You have said that sentence a hundred times. It is a procedure, and procedures should be written down.

Why not just put it in CLAUDE.md

Because it is only relevant when you are ingesting.

CLAUDE.md is read on every task, so anything in it is paying rent on every unrelated job you ever do. From Bonus 2: five rules carry full weight, two hundred carry a fortieth.

Where they live

my-film/
  .claude/
    skills/
      media-ingest/
        SKILL.md
      delivery-qc/
        SKILL.md

A folder with a SKILL.md inside it. That is the whole structure.

What one looks like

---
name: media-ingest
description: Use when new footage arrives from a card, drive or download.
---

# Ingesting

1. Copy to `_originals/<date>_<card>/`. Never move. Never rename.
2. Checksum every file. Write `_originals/<date>_<card>/manifest.txt`.
3. Verify the copy against the manifest. **Stop if anything mismatches.**
4. Proxies to `proxies/`, DNxHR LB, 1920x1080, same basenames.
5. Append to `INGEST-LOG.md`: date, card, file count, total size.

Never write to `_originals/` after step 2. Never delete from a card.

The description line is the whole trigger

That one sentence is how it knows when to load.

Write it as when to use this, not as what this is. A description that describes the topic will load at the wrong times or never.

Do not write it from nothing

You already have the evidence: the last time you did the thing.

"I just finished ingesting these cards. Write it up as a procedure I can reuse: the exact steps in order, the things that must never happen, and when it should be used. Ask me about anything you are guessing at."

That last clause matters. The steps it guesses will be plausible and wrong in the details that are actually yours.

Then do the thing that makes it real

Run it on the next job and watch where it goes wrong.

Your written procedure is a first draft of something you have never actually articulated. The first run always reveals two steps you do automatically and never mentioned.

"That is not how I do step 4. I always verify before making proxies, never after. Fix the skill."

Say what must never happen

Every procedure has a line that matters more than all the steps:

• Ingest: never write to originals, never delete from a card
• Delivery: never overwrite a delivered file, ever
• Archive: never delete anything, only ever move

Keep them small and separate

One skill, one job.

A large skill loads a large amount of irrelevant instruction whenever any part of it is relevant, which puts you back where you started.

Start with these three

1. Whatever you do most often. Ingest, or export, or setting up a new project.

2. Whatever you do rarely and get wrong. The annual archive. The delivery format you touch twice a year and re-learn every time.

3. Whatever went badly once. Turn the incident into the procedure that prevents it.

A skill is not a guard

Worth stating plainly, since Bonus 6 is fresh:

A skill says how to do it well. A guard makes the bad thing impossible.

A skill can be ignored, misread, or not loaded. If something must never happen, it belongs in a guard, and the skill just explains why the guard is there.

They are portable

A skill folder is a folder. Copy it into your next project and the procedure comes with it.

"Which of my skills are general to how I work, and which are specific to this film? Move the general ones up to my studio level."

Over a year this becomes your actual handbook, in a form that gets followed rather than filed.

The exercise

Thirty minutes. Pick the thing you explain most often.

1. Do the thing once, normally, with it watching.
2. *"Write that up as a reusable procedure: steps in order, what must never happen, and a

description saying when to use it. Ask me about anything you are guessing."*

1. Answer the questions properly. They are the parts you do unconsciously.
2. Read the description line starting with "use this when." Fix it if it does not survive that.
3. Put the nevers in their own paragraph at the bottom.
4. Run it on the next real job. Watch for the two steps you never mentioned.
5. "Fix the skill: I always do X before Y."
6. Now write the twice-a-year one, from your notes and your memory files.

What you should have now

• One procedure for the thing you do constantly, corrected by a real run
• One for the thing you do rarely and always half-remember
• Description lines that read as when to use this
• The nevers in their own paragraph, where they get read
• A clear line in your head between a skill and a guard

Your way of working exists outside your head, and it gets followed when you are not in the room.