Tw93 (@HiTw93) “I spent a day turning the Skills I personally use most into a new thing called W” — TopicDigg

I spent a day turning the Skills I personally use most into a new thing called Waza. In Japanese, Waza means 技（わざ）, often used for moves in martial arts. This is probably the first open source product I’ve released with no code at all, only Markdown. In the pre-AI era, that would have felt pretty shameful for a programmer. When Superpowers first came out, I installed it once and then removed it. It felt too heavy and wasn’t really for me. Quite a few people kept recommending it to me, like “Do you know Superpowers? If you’re not using it, you’re not really keeping up. It’s insanely good.” Later I found gstack, which was better, but still too much, and I still couldn’t get used to it. What I wanted was something simple and useful, while also being clear about what it was doing. So I made Waza around my own habits. For me, installing this set is enough. I don’t need to keep messing with more skills. It has just the right amount, not more, not less. And when new iterations come later, I can keep improving it over time. These 8 skills correspond to what I think are the 8 abilities a good engineer should have in the AI era: 1. Thinking. AI writes code very fast, but if the direction is wrong, the faster it goes, the further off it gets. A good engineer questions the problem itself before starting, stress-tests the plan, and gets the architecture clear in their head before letting AI execute. /think turns that habit into something fixed. 2. Design. Building a product is not just about making the feature work. Things generated by AI can easily end up looking all the same. A good engineer should have taste and standards for what gets delivered, and the output should have a clear design direction. That is what /design is for. 3. Troubleshooting. When AI fixes bugs, it easily falls into a loop of “change something and try again.” A good engineer approaches problems systematically, finds the root cause first, and then fixes it properly in one go. I turned that habit into /hunt. 4. Checking. Code generated by AI needs human review even more. Before merging, review the diff first, automatically fix what can be fixed, group together the parts that need judgment, and validate with evidence instead of relying on gut feeling. That is /check. 5. Reading. Good engineers are used to reading primary sources instead of secondhand summaries. Turn a URL or PDF into clean Markdown and bring it directly into the workflow. That is what /read does. 6. Writing. No matter how strong your technical skills are, if you cannot explain things clearly, other people will not receive it. A good engineer can clearly communicate what they have learned and what they want to express to the right audience. /write helps you do that. 7. Learning. In the AI era, technology moves faster. Entering an unfamiliar field is not just about reading a few articles. It is about collecting, digesting, outlining, drafting, polishing, and publishing, using output to drive learning. /learn is that whole process. 8. Maintaining. A good engineer does not only focus on business code. The toolchain itself also needs regular checkups. When CLAUDE.md, rules, hooks, or MCP configurations start to feel off, running /health helps you quickly see where the problem is.