How to use the Culture Architect agent skill

What is an agent skill and what does Culture Architect do?

An agent skill is a folder of instructions and reference files that an AI agent loads when a task matches it. Culture Architect is the skill named culture-architect, and its job is to treat culture as an operational system: what you reward, what you tolerate and what you celebrate.

Once installed, the agent helps you run mission, vision and values workshops, turn vague values into concrete behavioral anchors, draft a public culture code, outline a quarterly culture health survey with score interpretation, and suggest rituals suited to your company size. It also flags problems such as value-washing and culture debt.

• Mission, vision and values workshops, run as a conversation
• Values-to-behaviors translation with behavioral anchors
• Culture code drafting using a template with a 'who doesn't thrive here' section
• Culture health assessment with score bands from healthy to crisis
• Cultural rituals by company stage, from seed to 200+ people

How do you install the Culture Architect skill?

Download the ZIP file from this page and unzip it. The skill files are SKILL.md, references/culture-playbook.md and templates/culture-code-template.md.

For a personal install, unzip the folder into ~/.claude/skills/. To limit the skill to one project, unzip it into that project's .claude/skills/ folder instead.

You can also upload the ZIP in the Claude apps under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

• Personal install: place the culture-architect folder in ~/.claude/skills/
• Project install: place the culture-architect folder in your project's .claude/skills/
• Claude apps: upload the ZIP under Settings → Capabilities → Skills

How do you trigger the skill with a natural request?

You do not need a special command. The skill is meant to be picked up when your request matches its description, which mentions building company values, assessing culture health, designing cultural rituals, creating culture codes, handling culture clashes, and the terms culture, values, culture debt, founder culture or culture code.

Describe your situation in plain language and say what you want as the output. Mentioning your company size or stage helps, because the rituals guidance depends on it.

• Say what you are building: a values list, a culture code or a survey
• Give context: how many people you have and what stage you are at
• Mention the problem if there is one, such as a culture clash after a merger

What are some example requests?

These examples show the kind of prompt that matches the skill's areas. Adjust the wording to your own company.

• "Help me turn our value 'transparency' into behaviors my team can observe on day 30."
• "We are 35 people and want to write our first culture code. Walk me through the sections."
• "Draft a quarterly culture health survey with 10 anonymous questions and explain how to read the scores."
• "What rituals should a company of about 80 people run as it scales?"
• "Our Berlin and Madrid teams seem to have different cultures. How do we check and align them?"

What does the skill need and what are its limits?

The skill lists no required tools or packages. It does not run scripts and does not use the network, so it works from the instructions and files it contains.

It gives general guidance. It has no data about your people, and its score bands are generic, so they are a starting point rather than a diagnosis. It does not account for jurisdiction-specific rules on surveys or performance reviews, so it is not legal or employment-law advice. For a company in crisis, real research or professional organisational consulting is the better choice.

• Requires: nothing listed
• Runs scripts: no
• Uses network: no
• Not legal or employment-law advice
• Score bands are generic, not based on your data

What tips make the output more useful?

Ask the agent to test every value against a real behavior. The skill's core question is how a new hire would know you live a value on day 30. If you cannot answer that concretely, the value is an aspiration rather than a description.

Keep the culture code honest. The skill recommends a section on who does not thrive at your company, because that is what makes the document credible. Keep values to 3 to 5 items.

• Keep values to 3 to 5 items
• Write behaviors, not adjectives
• Run the culture survey quarterly with 8 to 12 anonymous questions
• Act on culture violations quickly to avoid culture debt