A four-word prompt — style this as a timeline — triggers the skill, loads the reference, and produces a styled list. Each run lands on something slightly different, which is a feature, not a bug.
Meta takeaways
Prompt
Short and intent-shaped — "style this as a timeline" — is enough.
Outcome
Every run produces a fresh take. The skill is creative, not deterministic.
Layer
A second skill — the style definition — gives the AI brand rules to honour.
The first prompt: "style this as a timeline"
The author opens the product launch milestones list and types one short instruction: style this as a timeline. SharePoint's AI sees the styling intent, the skill activates, the reference file loads, and the AI picks a timeline pattern from the PnP catalog.
The prompt doesn't have to name a pattern from the catalog. It describes the intent. The skill picks the matching pattern.
The result: a timeline view with styled state indicators on the milestones. Done in one prompt, with the AI reaching into the reference file for everything beyond what it already knew about timelines in SharePoint.
A "style as a timeline" request doesn't pick a single canned timeline JSON and paste it in. The AI reads the catalog patterns and adapts them to the list's actual columns.
Every run gives a different result
The author notes that running the same prompt twice gives different styled outputs. The skill is reading the reference and making creative choices each time — picking a slightly different timeline variant, different colour treatments, different status iconography.
Non-determinism is intentional. The skill is exploring the design space, not retrieving a fixed template.
For a team that wants consistency across many lists, this is a problem. Which is exactly the problem the next concept — a style definition skill — solves.
Variability isn't the skill being unreliable. It's the skill respecting the breadth of the PnP catalog — but it does mean you need a second layer if you want brand consistency.
Add the forest style skill
The author has a second skill in his GitHub repo: a style definition. It encodes a brand he calls "forest" — colour palette, typography, iconography, spacing, and layout rules. Uploaded to the same skills directory as the formatting skill.
A style definition skill turns brand consistency from a copy-paste discipline into a thing the AI can apply automatically.
With both skills present, the AI now has two pieces of knowledge to load — the technical reference (how SharePoint formatting works) and the forest style (what your brand wants). Run the same style this as a timeline prompt on a replica list and the output is now consistently on-brand.
What's actually inside a style definition
The author opens the forest style file and lists what it contains: a colour palette with role assignments, typography rules, iconography choices, spacing conventions, and layout rules. Not a single template — a set of design tokens and the rules for using them.
Think of the style definition as design tokens plus usage rules. The AI uses those tokens when it generates the formatting JSON.
Because the style definition is generic — it doesn't know about lists or libraries specifically — the same skill can guide formatting for Word documents, lists, or any other content surface the AI styles.
A style definition skill isn't just a colour swatch. It encodes when to use which colour, which typeface, which icon set, and what spacing rhythm — the rules a designer would normally enforce by hand.
Flashcards — Applied
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Intent-shaped prompt
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A short, intent-naming instruction like "style this as a timeline" — names the goal, lets the skill pick the matching pattern from the catalog.
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Output variability
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Same prompt, different result on each run. The AI explores the catalog rather than retrieving a fixed template — intentional creativity.
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Forest style
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The author's example brand definition skill — earthy palette, defined typography and iconography, spacing rules. Used to make every styled list on-brand.
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Style definition skill
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A skill that encodes a brand's design tokens and usage rules — colour, typography, iconography, spacing, layout. Generic enough for any content surface.
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Design tokens
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The named values inside a style definition — primary colour, body type, default spacing. The AI plugs them into the formatting JSON it generates.