How to Turn a Wish into a Rule: A Skill for AI Agents

Ilya, a developer writing about AI-assisted development, introduces skills as a tool he now uses for every project with an AI agent. He noticed that without skills, the agent would produce inconsistent code across tasks, creating a maintenance nightmare. A skill is an instruction file, typically SKILL.md, that tells the agent how to perform a task in a specific way. The format is open and supported by agents from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and others. The skill file includes a name and description that are always in context, while the full body is loaded only when needed, which is called progressive disclosure. He emphasizes writing only what the agent doesn't already know, using project-specific rules and examples. He provides a real example of a skill for writing Telegram posts, showing the structure with SKILL.md, references, assets, and scripts. The key to enforcement is a validation script that checks for stop words, banned characters, and other issues, which cannot be ignored like textual instructions. This turns wishes (like 'write without clichés') into concrete, checkable rules.