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Agent Skills Specification

Open Standard

Agent Skills are folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that AI agents can discover and use to perform tasks more accurately and efficiently.

What Are Agent Skills?

Skills solve a fundamental problem: AI agents are increasingly capable but often lack the context needed to do real work reliably. Skills provide:

  • Procedural knowledge — step-by-step instructions for completing tasks
  • Context — company, team, or user-specific knowledge that agents can load on demand
  • Capability extension — agents can dynamically extend their abilities based on the task

File Format

Skills are defined in SKILL.md files. This simple markdown-based format makes skills easy to write, version control, and share.

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What Skills Enable

Domain Expertise

Package specialized knowledge into reusable instructions for legal review, data analysis, and more.

New Capabilities

Give agents new functions like creating presentations, building MCP servers, or analyzing datasets.

Repeatable Workflows

Turn multi-step tasks into consistent and auditable workflows that can be shared.

Interoperability

Reuse the same skill across different skills-compatible agent products.

Compatible Agents

Agent Skills are supported by leading AI development tools:

Claude Code
OpenAI Codex
Gemini CLI
Cursor
GitHub Copilot
VS Code
+ more

Origin & Governance

Agent Skills was created by Anthropic and released as an open standard to the broader ecosystem. Development is open to contributions from the community.

Resources