Comment by pletnes

7 hours ago

I make skills for «this is how I like to do things in this company / project». Query test database, git branch names, commit message style, which cloud things can be inspected like logs etc. I don’t see the point in trying to teach the models things that is in the documentation of git, python, what have you. They already know.

7 comments

pletnes

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stanmancan  6 hours ago

Isn’t that what the agents.md in your project is for?

  • jbeninger  43 minutes ago

    It's possible I invented skills before they were common. I've always had some instructions in agents.md that are something like "when working with typescript, read prompts/conventions.ts.md, when working with our fooBar module, read prompts/foobar.md"

    I'm not sure if this differs greatly from skills. Maybe my wording makes these "skills" less likely to be read at the correct times, but I haven't seen an issue.

  • paool  6 hours ago

    I try to keep agents/Claude.md as tiny as possible. With high level "truths" that don't change. Stack used, invariants, file structure, and some scripts.

    Skills are more for things you do often. I run mutation tests, type check,linting,etc. I _could_ just prompt and copy/paste the same prompt each time I need to, or I can just run /tests.

    I also have skills for specialized tasks I need every once in a while, like a ux skill, a text skill optimized for xyz, etc.

  • jpalomaki  6 hours ago

    Depends on how much information and details you have. The agents.md always goes into context. Detailed testing or process information might be excessive, when agent is working on UI. Skills are pulled when needed.

    • distances  4 hours ago

      I handle the context problem by splitting the details to dozens of small md files. Agents.md acts as a router that directs the llm to correct documentation file/folder according to the task at hand.

      This documentation is its own git repo, and the agents.md file has an explicit instruction to update the docs when it has learned something general that can be useful in future sessions. I then occasionally review and prune those docs.

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  • jve  4 hours ago

    Skills are evaluated by short description whether to read them into context.

    Skills itself may be lengthy so...