Skill authoring

A skill is a reusable instruction set the agent loads on demand. Write it so the agent behaves the same way every time the skill fires — optimise for consistent process, not a pretty one-off answer.

The one virtue: predictability

Everything below serves one goal: predictability. A good skill makes the agent's behaviour repeatable across sessions and phrasings. It does not guarantee identical output — it guarantees the same approach.

Two costs trade against each other on every decision:

• Context Load — tokens the skill spends. A model-invoked skill's description is always in context, so every word there is paid on every turn, whether or not the skill fires.
• Cognitive Load — what a human must remember. A user-invoked command costs no context, but the human has to know it exists and type it.

Cut Context Load until the agent misbehaves; don't add until it behaves.

Anatomy