alt Hacker NewsGreat list of useful tips.
It's interesting that Boris doesn't mention "Agent Skills" at all. I'm still a bit confused at the difference between slash commands and Agent Skills.
Replies
discordance • last Wednesday at 5:26 AM
"Boris: Skills = slash commands, I use them interchangeably"
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1q2c0ne/comment/n...
cafebeen • last Wednesday at 5:03 AM
I believe slash commands are all loaded into the initial context and executed when invoked by the user. Skills on the other hand only load the name and description into initial context, and the agent (not user) determines when to invoke them, and only then is the whole skill loaded into context. So skills shift decision making to the agent and use progressive disclosure for context efficiency.
The main difference is that slash commands are invoked by humans, whereas skills can only be invoked by the agent itself. It works kinda as conditional instructions.
As an example, I have skills that aide in adding more detail to plans/specs, debugging, and for spinning up/partitioning subagents to execute tasks. I don't need to invoke a slash command each time, and the agent can contextually know by the instructions I give it what skills to use.