Effective Agent Skills

1. What agent skills are

An Agent Skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file (YAML frontmatter + markdown instructions), plus optional subfolders for scripts, references, and assets that the agent loads on demand.

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: metadata + instructions
├── scripts/          # Optional: executable code (CLIs, validators, helpers)
├── references/       # Optional: detailed docs loaded only when needed
└── assets/           # Optional: templates, fonts, static files

Agent Skills (agentskills.io) is an open standard. The folder and SKILL.md format are portable; optional behavior such as invocation control can be client-specific.