Context

Google Cloud: 5 Agent Skill Design Patterns identifies five composable patterns for structuring agent capabilities:

1. Tool Wrapper -- On-demand context for specific library/API
2. Generator -- Consistent structured output from templates
3. Reviewer -- Modular rubric-based evaluation
4. Inversion -- Agent interviews before acting
5. Pipeline -- Strict sequential workflow with hard checkpoints

Why This Matters

These patterns map to SynthOrg's existing architecture: Pipeline = approval gates, Inversion = setup wizard requirements gathering, Reviewer = output scanner. Classifying templates using this taxonomy improves documentation and helps users understand which pattern each template implements.

Current template metadata is weak: descriptions are vague one-liners ("Small team for building MVPs and prototypes"), tags are generic ("startup", "mvp"), and display names don't communicate scale or focus well ("Dev Shop" and "Product Team" sound nearly identical to non-technical users).

Scope

Skill pattern taxonomy (original scope)

• Map existing agent templates to the 5-pattern taxonomy
• Document which pattern(s) each template implements
• Consider whether template design should explicitly declare its pattern type
• Evaluate composability: Pipeline with Reviewer step, Generator with Inversion preamble

Descriptions

• Rewrite template descriptions to explain what makes each template distinct, what kind of work it's optimized for, and what trade-offs it makes (e.g. "A lean engineering team built for shipping. No C-suite overhead -- a Software Architect leads directly. Three backend developers, a frontend specialist, QA pipeline, and a DevOps engineer. Optimized for throughput with quality gates.")
• Keep descriptions concise but informative (2-3 sentences)

Tags

• Add capability tags beyond generic categorization: "ci-cd", "code-review", "design-system", "data-pipeline", "client-management"
• Ensure tags help with future search/filtering in the builder wizard (feat: implement company builder interactive wizard (UI + API) #238)

Display names

• Review display names for clarity and differentiation
• Consider: "Dev Shop" -> "Engineering Squad", "Full Company" -> "Enterprise Org", "Solo Founder" -> "Solo Builder"
• Names should communicate both scale and focus

References

• Google Cloud article
• Pattern spec applies across ADK, Claude Code, and 30+ agent tools