AI skills
Reusable instructions that hold AI-assisted work to the same standards as any other.
On this page
Find guidance for your AI
Give your coding assistant the AI documentation index. It links to Markdown versions of the installation guidance, components, patterns, templates, styles and design decisions. Ask it to read the pages relevant to your task.
The index lists the package versions used to build these docs. Your assistant should check your project's installed version before using an API, class or token. Documentation may describe a newer version.
Available skills
| Skill | Use it when | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility review | Review pages, components or service journeys against the WCAG conformance target on the GovBB Design System's accessibility page and GovBB accessibility contracts, separating verified findings from judgement and manual testing. Use when an accessibility review is requested or a specific accessibility defect needs investigation, not for unrelated UI or repository work. | Experimental |
| Design system compliance | Build, convert or review Government of Barbados interfaces using the GovBB Design System (@govtech-bb/frontend and @govtech-bb/react). Use for requested GovBB UI work or design-system compliance reviews, not unrelated work in a repository that happens to depend on these packages. | Experimental |
Experimental means the skill works and has been used, but has not yet earned its keep across enough real services for us to promise it will not change. Read its page before relying on its output.
Install
From your service project's directory, run this command, then choose the skills and coding assistant you use. This installs into that project by default:
npx skills add govtech-bb/govbb-design-systemTo list the available skills before installing:
npx skills add govtech-bb/govbb-design-system --listEach skill's page also gives a command to install just that skill. After installation, ask your assistant to use the skill by name. Browser checks need the additional tools listed on that skill's page.
If you previously installed govbb from the team marketplace, install through npx skills, check that your assistant can find the skills, then uninstall the old govbb plugin through your assistant's plugin manager to avoid loading duplicate instructions.
Each skill's Markdown page previews its main instructions. Usenpx skills to install the complete skill, including the references and scripts those instructions use.
What a skill is
A skill is a set of instructions an AI coding assistant loads when a task matches it. It is not a model, a service, or anything that runs on its own. Review its instructions and your assistant's data settings before using it with service information.
These skills exist because the same questions kept being answered differently: which component covers this, does this meet the accessibility standard, is this what the design system actually says. Writing the answer down once means every team gets the same one, and that answer can be reviewed and argued with like any other guidance.
They deliberately hold no list of components, tokens or values. Those change, and a skill repeating a stale one gives confident wrong answers without anything failing to warn you. Instead each skill looks up the relevant guidance and checks implementation details against your project's installed package version.
Standards that apply either way
A skill helps meet these; it does not replace them. AI-assisted work is held to the same design, accessibility, privacy and review standards as work produced any other way.
- Follow the design-system standards.
- Use published components andpatterns instead of inventing alternatives.
- Review generated copy, code and interfaces before they reach users.
- Do not enter personal, confidential or security-sensitive information into an AI tool unless your organisation has approved that use.
A skill's report is a starting point for a person, not a sign-off. Where a skill can only verify something partly, it is written to say so rather than imply it passed — if a report claims something you cannot reproduce, treat that as a defect in the skill andtell us.