alt Hacker NewsIt's a folder with a markdown file in it plus optional additional reference files and executable scripts.
The clever part is that the markdown file has a section in it like this: https://github.com/datasette/skill/blob/a63d8a2ddac9db8225ee...
---
name: datasette-plugins
description: "Writing Datasette plugins using Python and the pluggy plugin system. Use when Claude needs to: (1) Create a new Datasette plugin, (2) Implement plugin hooks like prepare_connection, register_routes, render_cell, etc., (3) Add custom SQL functions, (4) Create custom output renderers, (5) Add authentication or permissions logic, (6) Extend Datasette's UI with menus, actions, or templates, (7) Package a plugin for distribution on PyPI"
---
Replies
why did this simple idea take so long to become available? I remember even in llama 2 days I was doing this stuff, and that model didn't even function call.
> On startup Claude Code / Codex CLI etc scan all available skills folders and extract just those descriptions into the context. Then, if you ask them to do something that's covered by a skill, they read the rest of that markdown file on demand before going ahead with the task.
Maybe I still don't understand the mechanics - this happens "on startup", every time a new conversation starts? Models go through the trouble of doing ls/cat/extraction of descriptions to bring into context? If so it's happening lightning fast and I somehow don't notice.
Why not just include those descriptions within some level of system prompt?
So it’s a header file. In English.
Do skills get access to the current context or are they a blank slate?
Have you used AWS bedrock? I assume these get pretty affordable with prompt caching...
Apologies for not reading all of your blogs on this, but a follow-up question. Are models still prone to reading these and disregarding them even if they should be used for a task?
Reason I ask is because a while back I had similar sections in my CLAUDE.md and it would either acknowledge and not use or just ignore them sometimes. I'm assuming that's more of an issue of too much context and now skill-level files like this will reduce that effect?