AI Skill

A block of domain rules that an agent loads part-way through a run. A skill is a prompt that arrives as a tool result rather than as a system prompt.

The measured weakness

WARNING: A rule that arrives as a tool result does not hold as firmly as the same rule in a system prompt. In a measured comparison, an agent loaded a skill, read a rule in it, and then broke that rule on every run. The same rule held when it sat in the system prompt of a subagent.

Use a skill where the cost of ignoring the rule is low. A knowledge base fits well. Where a rule must hold, put it in the system prompt of an AI Agent, or give the work to a specialist whose prompt carries it.

What a skill is worth

An agent with twenty skills still loads one. The prompt stays small, and the saving grows with the number of skills. In one measured comparison, skills used 28% less prompt text than a single agent that carried every policy in its system prompt.

Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
name	String	Yes	Unique. The name the agent loads the skill by.
description	String	No	What area of work this covers, in a few words.
body	Text	Yes	The rules. This text is handed to the agent when it loads the skill.
enabled	Boolean	Yes	A disabled skill is not offered.

How the agent sees it

An agent with pattern set to skills gets one extra tool, called load_skill. Its description lists every enabled skill of the agent on one line, with the description of each. The agent reads that line to choose a skill. Keep each description short.