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A skill owns reusable agent instructions. It can include reference files, scripts, assets, and an allowed-tools policy. Skills exist because some agent behavior is larger than one prompt but smaller than a new runtime primitive. A skill packages a repeatable way of working, such as code review, data analysis, incident response, or repository maintenance.

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Characteristics

  • SKILL.md contains the instructions and metadata.
  • References provide supporting material the agent can load.
  • Scripts provide optional executable helpers.
  • Assets provide optional files the skill can use.
  • Allowed tools limit which actions are available while the skill is active.

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Boundary

The agent owns the interaction and decides when to use a skill. The skill owns the instructions and supporting files for that capability. Tools still own actions. The skill policy limits which tools are available while the skill is active. This keeps task-specific agent behavior discoverable without hiding it inside a large system prompt.

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Wrong fit

Do not use a skill for deterministic work that should be a tool, background work that should be a task, or multi-step process state that should be a workflow. For implementation steps, see Skills.