Guides · Updated 2026-10-17

What are Agent Skills? SKILL.md explained

Short answer: an Agent Skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file that tells an agent how to do one job well. The agent reads only the skill's name and description up front and loads the full instructions when a task calls for it, so you can keep many skills installed cheaply.

What's inside an Agent Skill?

my-skill/
  SKILL.md      required: name, description, instructions
  scripts/      optional: code the agent can run
  references/   optional: docs
  assets/       optional: templates

How do skills load?

Discovery: the agent loads each skill's name and description at startup.
Activation: when a task matches, it reads the full SKILL.md.
Execution: it follows the instructions, running bundled scripts or reading files as needed.

Where do Agent Skills work?

The agentskills.io showcase lists dozens of clients, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Gemini CLI, OpenHands and Goose. Anthropic publishes example skills on GitHub.

Looking for skills to install? Compare each agent skills library we track, with install commands, licenses and GitHub stars.

How are skills different from MCP servers?

Skill: know-how. Instructions and scripts, loaded on demand.
MCP server: access. A live connection to a system such as GitHub or a database. See what an MCP server is and MCP vs A2A.

Browse real agent setups to see skills and MCP servers used together.

See also: the best agent skills libraries (Oct 2026), including scientific agent skills, with live GitHub stars.

Which tools in our directory relate to this, and how do they compare?

Score	Tool	Type	Host
100	stableenrich.dev people-search FullEnrich People Search — filter by company domain/name/LinkedIn URL, seniority, title, location, skills, and	x402 · $0.15	stableenrich.dev
100	preppers-paradise.com 02-what-is-programming.md Paid book chapter (x402): Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: What Is Programming. Unit of a larger practic	x402 · $0.01	preppers-paradise.com
100	cyre.dev bazaar Cyre Bazaar Scan — before you pay a new x402 / Agentic Market skill, probe the resource URL, forensics the 402	x402 · $0.003	cyre.dev
100	cyre.dev route Cyre Pay-route Oracle — before your agent pays any external x402 resource, grade payTo + amount/URL + facilita	x402 · $0.002	cyre.dev
100	cyre.dev gate Cyre Gate — before your agent pays ANY other x402 service, grade the payTo counterparty + spend shape in one c	x402 · $0.001	cyre.dev
100	eltociear-skill-audit.hf.space audit Audit text for malicious AI-skill patterns. Requires `content`. Nothing to audit — crawling, or discovering th	x402 · $0.005	eltociear-skill-audit.hf.space
100	stableupload.dev upload Buy an upload slot. Agent uploads file via returned URL.	x402 · $0.005	stableupload.dev
100	keyring-agent.blockchhub.link send-native Pay the send-native execution fee (native coin transfer)	x402 · $0.05	keyring-agent.blockchhub.link
100	rubric-protocol.com exchange-rate Attested Hedera network facts: HBAR exchange rate, gas fees, supply, node roster, throughput, topic state. Eac	x402 · $0.001	rubric-protocol.com
100	ausca.com open-inbox Start one renewable random receive-only temporary email address, then wait for and read bounded inbound mail.	x402 · $0.05	ausca.com

What else do people ask?

What are Agent Skills?

Per agentskills.io, Agent Skills are a lightweight, open format for extending AI agents with specialized knowledge and workflows. A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with metadata (at minimum a name and description) and instructions, optionally bundling scripts, references and assets.

How do agents load skills?

Through progressive disclosure. At startup the agent loads only each skill's name and description; when a task matches, it reads the full SKILL.md; then it follows the instructions, running bundled code or loading files as needed.

Who created Agent Skills?

agentskills.io says the format was originally developed by Anthropic and released as an open standard, and that it has been adopted by a growing number of agent products.

Which tools support Agent Skills?

The agentskills.io client showcase lists, among others, Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Gemini CLI, OpenHands, Goose and OpenCode.

Skills or MCP servers?

A skill packages know-how (instructions, scripts, templates) that the agent reads when needed. An MCP server gives the agent live access to an external system. Many setups use skills to describe how to work and MCP servers to reach the systems involved.

Sources

More guides → · Real agent setups →