Skill

A Skill is a "how-to bundle" that teaches an AI the procedure and tricks for a specific job. You put instructions, reference materials, and even executable code if needed into a single folder, and the AI pulls it out and follows it when doing that task. The name became standard after Anthropic introduced it in Claude.

The new-employee analogy fits well. Instead of explaining something verbally to a smart new hire (the AI) every single time, you leave a "company report-writing manual" on their desk. Once you've turned things like "create a quote using our company template" or "write a notice in our team's tone" into Skills, all it takes afterward is a simple "make me a quote."

It's easy to understand in relation to MCP — if MCP is the standard that plugs "tools (hands)" into an AI, a Skill is the way to give it "know-how (a manual)" for doing the work. The more an AI has both hands and manuals, the more it becomes a worker rather than just an answering machine. That's why these two terms keep showing up together in agent news.

"A Skill marketplace has opened — an era of buying and selling well-made work manuals" — because Skills exist as files (folders), they can be shared and traded, which feeds into ecosystem news.

1. Try telling Claude: "Let me show you the weekly report format I use every week. Please write in this format from now on" — and paste in the format.
2. Next time, just say "write this week's report."
3. This "teach it once, reuse it" behavior is what became the official Skill feature. You can save it as a file under the Skills section in Claude's settings.

Both keep showing up together in agent articles, and both get described as 'adding something to AI,' so they look alike. But one attaches a hand, and the other hands over a manual. A manual without a hand can't act on what it reads; a hand without a manual won't do things our way.