Skills is just a tech bro word for a simple markdown file with instructions.

No need to over complicate it. Write down things you feel like re-using. Like how to specifically implement something in your system ("when adding a new API endpoint we need to do x y and z", or "when making a github PR we tag Æ and Å") so you don't have to repeat it. And I mostly add it in cases where it didn't infer it itself. So very reactive, not proactive.

Most public skills are useless and over complicated. Lots of people are spending too much time on their harness, than actually making stuff.

Edit: but do get inspired by public ones. For instance a "grill me" skill can ve be useful, but I find the public one very mumbo-jumbo. But the idea of forcing the agent to ask clarifying questions is good.

My genuine question is:

Are there any "skills" at all that have proven to be useful? And if so, what's the context?

Because, for me anyway, LLMs usually do one thing, and that then produces a durable artifact. So the prompt that got me there by that point expired and is not really needed anymore.

I also occasionally have recurring tasks (rarely though), but there, the prompt to do stuff is embedded in code that orchestrates the doing, so I have no use-case for that either.

___

For the "add this endpoint" example you've described, I just throw commit IDs at the clanker and say "go do that again". That works, and doesn't decouple knowledge from code.

[dead]