Claude Skill publication runbook

Step-by-step for publishing theaccessible PDF Converter as an Anthropic Skill bundle. Companion to docs/CUSTOM-GPT-PUBLICATION.md (OpenAI Custom GPT) and docs/MCP-AND-CUSTOM-GPT.md (MCP server).

The skill source lives in this repo at skills/pdf-converter/. The public distribution lives at https://github.com/anglinai/theaccessible-skill.

What a Skill is (vs. a Custom GPT)

	Custom GPT	Claude Skill
Lives where	OpenAI GPT Store	A folder Claude loads on demand
Auth	Action API key, pasted in editor	`THEACCESSIBLE_API_KEY` env var on the user’s machine
Code execution	None — model calls Action endpoints	Yes — model can run bundled bash scripts
Discoverability	Public GPT Store	GitHub repo (today); claude.ai upload (when GA)
Distribution	One link	Skill bundle (zip / git clone)

The skill calls the same /api/gpt/* HTTPS surface as the Custom GPT — no new server-side endpoints required.

Prerequisites

The OpenAPI spec live at https://api-pdf.theaccessible.org/openapi.yaml.
A test API key (Settings → API keys in the dashboard).
bash, curl, jq on the test machine.

1. Verify the bundle locally

ls skills/pdf-converter/
# SKILL.md  README.md  scripts/  references/

# Syntax-check the shell scripts:
for f in skills/pdf-converter/scripts/*.sh; do bash -n "$f"; done && echo OK

2. Smoke-test in Claude Code

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/pdf-converter
cp -r skills/pdf-converter ~/.claude/skills/pdf-converter

export THEACCESSIBLE_API_KEY=tap_...   # your test key

Open Claude Code in any directory and run all four scenarios:

Public URL. “Make this PDF accessible: https://example.com/sample.pdf” Confirm: convert.sh --url, polling, result with three markdown links + reportUrl.
Local file. “Make ~/Downloads/sample.pdf accessible.” Confirm the model picks convert.sh --file (not --url with a ~/... path).
Known-bad PDF. Use a PDF with no tags / no language. Confirm conformance.passed=false and the model lists the failed rules without claiming compliance.
Oversize. Try a 30 MB PDF. Confirm convert.sh exits 65 with the size message, surfaced cleanly to the user.

3. Smoke-test scripts directly

Run each script outside the model to confirm exit codes and JSON shape:

cd ~/.claude/skills/pdf-converter
./scripts/convert.sh --url https://example.com/sample.pdf | jq .
fid=$(./scripts/convert.sh --url https://example.com/sample.pdf | jq -r .data.fileId)
./scripts/poll_status.sh "$fid" | jq .data.status
./scripts/get_result.sh "$fid" | jq '.data | keys'
./scripts/get_conformance.sh "$fid" | jq '.data.conformance.passed'

All four should exit 0 on the happy path. poll_status.sh should exit 1 on status=failed and 3 on the 5-minute timeout.

4. Publish to the public repo

The public mirror is a separate repo so external users can clone it without pulling our backend source.

# First time only — see step 5 of the original setup, below.
cd ~/Projects
git clone [email protected]:anglinai/theaccessible-skill.git
cd theaccessible-skill

# Sync from the source of truth:
rsync -av --delete \
  ~/Projects/accessible/skills/pdf-converter/ \
  ./

git add -A
git commit -m "Sync from accessible@$(cd ~/Projects/accessible && git rev-parse --short HEAD)"
git push origin main

Tag a release for users who pin versions:

git tag -a v0.1.0 -m "Initial public release"
git push origin v0.1.0

5. First-time public-repo setup

Done once, then never again. Documented for completeness.

gh repo create anglinai/theaccessible-skill \
  --public \
  --description "Claude Skill: convert PDFs into WCAG 2.1 AA / PDF/UA-1 compliant deliverables. Uses theaccessible.org." \
  --homepage "https://theaccessible.org" \
  --license MIT

Repo settings:

License: MIT (the bundle is just a thin wrapper around the public API).
Topics: claude, claude-code, claude-skill, accessibility, pdf, wcag, pdf-ua, anthropic.
Issues: enabled.
Discussions: disabled (route to GitHub Issues).
Branch protection on main: required PR review for non-admin.

6. Build the .dxt and skill .zip artifacts

We host two installable artifacts at https://pdf.theaccessible.org/downloads/:

Artifact	What it is	Target surface
`theaccessible-pdf-converter-<ver>.dxt`	Desktop Extension wrapping our MCP server (`api-pdf.theaccessible.org/api/mcp`) via `mcp-remote`	Claude Desktop (one-click install)
`theaccessible-pdf-skill-<ver>.zip`	Zip of `skills/pdf-converter/`	Claude Code, Agent SDK

The build script handles both:

# Install the dxt CLI once
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/dxt

# Build both artifacts
./apps/skills/pdf-converter/build.sh

This:

Validates apps/skills/pdf-converter/dxt/manifest.json.
Runs dxt pack and writes theaccessible-pdf-converter-<ver>.dxt into apps/web/public/downloads/.
Zips skills/pdf-converter/ (excluding the dev-only smoke tests) into theaccessible-pdf-skill-<ver>.zip in the same directory.

Cloudflare Pages serves both with Content-Disposition: attachment (configured in apps/web/public/_headers) so users get a clean download flow.

Bump versions independently:

DXT version → apps/skills/pdf-converter/dxt/manifest.json
Skill version → reflects the GitHub repo tag (the zip has no embedded version)

Deploy by pushing to main and running the standard apps/web deploy pipeline.

7. Distribute

Channel	Status	Action
`pdf.theaccessible.org/downloads/*.dxt`	Day 1	Built in step 6, deploys with `apps/web`
`pdf.theaccessible.org/downloads/*.zip`	Day 1	Built in step 6
Public GitHub repo	Day 1	Done in step 4
Claude Agent SDK skill bundle	Day 1	Same folder shape — point SDK consumers at the repo
claude.ai Skills upload	When GA	Upload the same `.zip` via the Skills UI
Anthropic DXT directory	When GA	Submit `theaccessible-pdf-converter-<ver>.dxt` once a directory exists

Promote the repo from:

docs/MCP-AND-CUSTOM-GPT.md — add a “Skills” section linking to the public repo.
apps/home “Tools” section on theaccessible.org — add a third card next to Custom GPT and MCP.
The dashboard “API keys” page — surface the install snippet alongside the existing OpenAI / MCP instructions.

8. Versioning + updates

The skill folder has no version field beyond the git tag — Claude loads the live filesystem copy.
Bump the tag whenever SKILL.md or any script changes:
- Patch (v0.1.x): script bug fix or wording tweak in SKILL.md.
- Minor (v0.x.0): new script, new optional flag, or expanded workflow. Backwards-compatible.
- Major (v1.0.0+): breaking change to script CLI, env-var name, or required workflow steps. Requires user re-install.
When the API surface changes (new endpoint, breaking schema change), update references/api.md and the relevant script in the same PR that ships the API change. Otherwise the skill silently drifts.

9. Failure modes (post-launch)

Symptom (user report)	Likely cause	Fix
”Skill says my key is missing”	`THEACCESSIBLE_API_KEY` not exported in the shell Claude Code spawns scripts in	Add the export to `~/.zshrc` and restart the terminal
”Polling exits with TIMEOUT but the job finishes later”	Backend queue backed up	Tell user to re-run `poll_status.sh <fileId>` — the job is still queued server-side
”401 on every call”	Revoked key, or `--header X-API-Key` mis-typed	Issue a fresh key
Model bypasses scripts and hand-rolls curl	SKILL.md drift after editing	Restore from this repo; the workflow section MUST tell the model to call the scripts
Model loops on a failed conversion	Old `poll_status.sh` without `status=failed` short-circuit	Update to ≥ v0.1.0

10. Monitoring

API-key dashboard: skill-driven traffic shows up alongside Custom GPT / MCP usage on the same key. There’s no per-surface attribution today — if we want it, add a User-Agent: theaccessible-skill/<ver> header in _lib.sh and log it.
[gpt-openapi] workers/api logs show every call — filter by userId to debug specific user reports.

When to update this doc

New script added or removed: update steps 1, 2, 3, and the bundle inventory in the README.
API contract changes: update step 7 and skills/pdf-converter/references/api.md.
Anthropic ships a registry / claude.ai Skills GA: update step 6.