Skill
In the context of agents, a capability module that is pre-packaged and can be invoked; users trigger it through commands, and the agent uses it to call tools, read data and produce results.
Timeline (last 90 days)
The skills feature can add specific capabilities such as Word, PPT, and Excel operations to the AI like plugins.
Skills are reusable fixed operation methods that directly operate local software, covering scenarios such as QQ Music, PDF, Markdown, and Mermaid charts.
Skill is a form of externalized memory, unrelated to model parameters, recording structured, readable and editable Markdown steps, and is more controllable than pure vector memory.
The necessary condition for creating a skill is that the instruction needs to be reused; optional conditions include involving specific conventions of an individual or team, and involving niche domain knowledge.
Philippe explicitly does not recommend creating skills for general knowledge, such as designing relational database schemas, because ordinary large models can already handle it very well.
Nacho Martinez installed more than 100 skills, each taking up about 3,000 to 5,000 tokens.
When calling the chat completion API, tools and skills often occupy 80% of the token volume of the entire request (about 35,000 to 100,000 tokens).
A reasonable onboarding path for adopting the Claude Agent SDK is: first get a single agent plus structured output working, then introduce SessionStore for state persistence, and only then split out sub-agents; skills and plugins should be abstracted only when a second reuse need arises.
In the Claude Agent SDK, skills are positioned as capability units that encapsulate reuse of an agent's internal logic, and plugins are positioned as the channel for integrating external tools or services into the agent system.
The updates to the Claude Agent SDK in the second half of 2026 focus on five areas: nested sub-agents (with quantity limits), SessionStore, skills, plugins, and structured output plus permission defaults.
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All Facts (13)
The skills feature can add specific capabilities such as Word, PPT, and Excel operations to the AI like plugins.
50%UnverifiedSkills are reusable fixed operation methods that directly operate local software, covering scenarios such as QQ Music, PDF, Markdown, and Mermaid charts.
50%UnverifiedSkill is a form of externalized memory, unrelated to model parameters, recording structured, readable and editable Markdown steps, and is more controllable than pure vector memory.
50%UnverifiedThe necessary condition for creating a skill is that the instruction needs to be reused; optional conditions include involving specific conventions of an individual or team, and involving niche domain knowledge.
50%UnverifiedPhilippe explicitly does not recommend creating skills for general knowledge, such as designing relational database schemas, because ordinary large models can already handle it very well.
50%UnverifiedNacho Martinez installed more than 100 skills, each taking up about 3,000 to 5,000 tokens.
50%UnverifiedWhen calling the chat completion API, tools and skills often occupy 80% of the token volume of the entire request (about 35,000 to 100,000 tokens).
50%UnverifiedA reasonable onboarding path for adopting the Claude Agent SDK is: first get a single agent plus structured output working, then introduce SessionStore for state persistence, and only then split out sub-agents; skills and plugins should be abstracted only when a second reuse need arises.
50%UnverifiedIn the Claude Agent SDK, skills are positioned as capability units that encapsulate reuse of an agent's internal logic, and plugins are positioned as the channel for integrating external tools or services into the agent system.
50%UnverifiedThe updates to the Claude Agent SDK in the second half of 2026 focus on five areas: nested sub-agents (with quantity limits), SessionStore, skills, plugins, and structured output plus permission defaults.
50%UnverifiedThe same skill has vastly different effects on different queries and at different levels of policy capability.
50%UnverifiedIn the agent domain, an "expert" is essentially a combination of pre-configured system prompts and specific tool permissions, while a "skill" is closer to the concept of an MCP or traditional API plugin.
50%UnverifiedIn Coze, skills are atomic operations, workflows are process orchestrations, and agents are the complete product form presented externally.
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