What is an agent skill?

A folder of instructions, usually a SKILL.md file, that teaches a coding agent how to do a specific task. The agent loads it when the task is relevant.

Do skills use up my agent's context?

Only a little until they're used. The agent sees each skill's short description and loads the full file only when it needs it.

Which agents support skills?

Claude Code and Codex read SKILL.md folders, and many other agents and tools support the same format.

Does Pane install skills?

Pane bundles skills and helper subagents for Claude Code and Codex, installs them once, and removes only what it installed. You can turn the Pane skill off in Settings.

Glossary

what are agent skills?

TL;DR

An agent skill is a folder of instructions, usually a SKILL.md file plus any scripts it needs, that teaches a coding agent how to do one kind of task. The agent sees a short description of each skill and loads the full instructions only when they're relevant, so skills don't fill its context. Claude Code, Codex and other agents read them. Many tools now ship skills that teach your agent to use them, so check what a new tool installs.

Prompting the same instructions into every session gets old. A skill writes them down once, in a place the agent knows to look, and the agent pulls them in when the task calls for it.

How skills work

A short description is always visible; the full instructions load only when needed.

Each skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file. The top of the file has a name and a one-line description. The agent keeps those descriptions in view, and when your request matches one, it reads the rest of the file and follows it. The folder can also hold scripts or reference files the instructions point to.

You can usually trigger a skill by name too, often with a slash command such as /skill-name.

Where skills live

In your agent's config folder, or in the project so the whole team gets them.

Skills sit in the agent's own skills folder in your home directory, which applies everywhere, or inside a project, which applies to that repo and can be committed for the team. The exact folders differ by agent.

Tools that ship skills

Many agent tools teach your agent to drive them with a skill. Know what gets installed.

Skills have become the standard way for a tool to teach agents its commands. Herdr ships a SKILL.md that teaches any agent to drive it. Pane bundles skills, such as ones for preparing a pull request or orchestrating sessions, plus helper subagents for Claude Code and Codex. Hermes learns new skills from what it does.

Some tools install skills into your agent configs on first launch without asking. In our tests Maestri added 28 skill folders that way. It's worth backing up your agent's config folder before trying several tools, and reviewing what each one adds.

Sources

Corrections

If anything here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll fix it and update the date at the top. Open an issue on GitHub

Sources

→ Herdr agent skill
→ Hermes Agent

frequently asked questions

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By Parsa Khazaeepoul, co-founder of Pane. Last reviewed October 2026.