---
id: con-skills
schema: concept/1
layer: garden
status: emerging
name: Skills
aka: ["Agent Skills", "Claude Skills", "SKILL.md", "playbooks", "reusable workflows"]
summary: >
  Packaged instructions, examples and sometimes small tools for one kind of task, which the AI loads
  only when that task comes up, so a proven way of working can be reused and shared.
first_seen: "2025-10"
relations:
  builds_on: [con-context-engineering, con-custom-instructions]
  evolved_from: []
  related: [con-automation, con-evals]
  parallels:
    - con-custom-assistants
    - idea: "a standard operating procedure"
      field: "operations"
      note: "A written method that lets anyone do a recurring job the proven way."
    - idea: "a recipe card"
      field: "cooking"
implementations:
  - { provider: anthropic, name: "Claude Skills" }
  - { provider: openai, name: "Skills in ChatGPT and Codex" }
  - { provider: google, name: "Gemini skills" }
  - { provider: every, name: "Compound Engineering plugin (about 36 skills for coding agents)", resource: res-other-every-compound-engineering-guide }
  - { provider: every, name: "Compound Knowledge plugin (skills for office work, built by a non-engineer)", resource: res-other-every-agent-that-saved-my-brain }
competencies: [cmp-make-it-repeatable]
origin:
  kind: ai-proposed
  by: "seed agent 2026-10-16"
  rationale: "The format this commons itself ships in; new enough that learners need the idea explained."
---

A skill is a small folder that teaches an AI how to do one kind of job your way. It usually holds a short instruction file, plus any examples, templates or helper scripts the job needs. The AI sees a one-line description of each skill and opens the full instructions only when a task matches, so you can have many skills without crowding every conversation.

Skills sit between custom instructions, which apply to everything, and a whole custom assistant, which is built for one purpose. Several skills can be combined in one task. Because they are plain files, they are easy to share, version and improve over time, and an open format means one skill can work in more than one product.

This commons publishes its own coaching methods as skills.

## Example

A program officer has a skill called "site-visit-report". It holds the report template, two good past reports and a checklist of things funders always ask. She types "turn my notes into a site visit report" and the AI follows the playbook without being reminded.

## How it connects

- A packaged form of **context engineering**, finer-grained than **custom instructions**.
- Parallels **custom assistants**: both bottle up a way of working.
- Skills that run on their own lead into **automation**, and checking them leads to **evals**.

## Try it

Pick a task you've explained to AI more than twice. Write the steps you follow in five lines, in your own words, before asking AI to help you turn them into a skill.