Remove redundant what-are-skills.mdx

The content of this page is now adequately represented elsewhere:

- The intro, directory structure, and progressive disclosure sections
  are covered by `home.mdx` and `specification.mdx`.
- The `SKILL.md` format details are covered by `quickstart.mdx` and
  `specification.mdx`.
- The "key advantages" framing (self-documenting, extensible, portable)
  is either self-evident, conveyed by the directory trees in `home.mdx`
  and `specification.mdx`, or demonstrated by the Client Showcase.

Also adds a redirect from `/what-are-skills` to the home page so
existing inbound links don't break.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Jonathan Hefner
2026-04-19 15:25:44 -05:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 4.7
parent b8d2613ac0
commit c33d0c7f1f
2 changed files with 4 additions and 72 deletions
+4 -1
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@@ -21,7 +21,6 @@
"navigation": {
"pages": [
"home",
"what-are-skills",
"specification",
"clients",
{
@@ -58,6 +57,10 @@
{
"source": "/integrate-skills",
"destination": "/client-implementation/adding-skills-support"
},
{
"source": "/what-are-skills",
"destination": "/"
}
]
}
-71
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@@ -1,71 +0,0 @@
---
title: "What are skills?"
description: "Agent Skills are a lightweight, open format for extending AI agent capabilities with specialized knowledge and workflows."
---
At its core, a skill is a folder containing a `SKILL.md` file. This file includes metadata (`name` and `description`, at minimum) and instructions that tell an agent how to perform a specific task. Skills can also bundle scripts, templates, and reference materials.
```directory
my-skill/
├── SKILL.md # Required: instructions + metadata
├── scripts/ # Optional: executable code
├── references/ # Optional: documentation
└── assets/ # Optional: templates, resources
```
## How skills work
Skills use **progressive disclosure** to manage context efficiently:
1. **Discovery**: At startup, agents load only the name and description of each available skill, just enough to know when it might be relevant.
2. **Activation**: When a task matches a skill's description, the agent reads the full `SKILL.md` instructions into context.
3. **Execution**: The agent follows the instructions, optionally loading referenced files or executing bundled code as needed.
This approach keeps agents fast while giving them access to more context on demand.
## The SKILL.md file
Every skill starts with a `SKILL.md` file containing YAML frontmatter and Markdown instructions:
```mdx
---
name: pdf-processing
description: Extract PDF text, fill forms, merge files. Use when handling PDFs.
---
# PDF Processing
## When to use this skill
Use this skill when the user needs to work with PDF files...
## How to extract text
1. Use pdfplumber for text extraction...
## How to fill forms
...
```
The following frontmatter is required at the top of `SKILL.md`:
- `name`: A short identifier
- `description`: When to use this skill
The Markdown body contains the actual instructions and has no specific restrictions on structure or content.
This simple format has some key advantages:
- **Self-documenting**: A skill author or user can read a `SKILL.md` and understand what it does, making skills easy to audit and improve.
- **Extensible**: Skills can range in complexity from just text instructions to executable code, assets, and templates.
- **Portable**: Skills are just files, so they're easy to edit, version, and share.
## Next steps
- [View the specification](/specification) to understand the full format.
- [Add skills support to your agent](/client-implementation/adding-skills-support) to build a compatible client.
- [See example skills](https://github.com/anthropics/skills) on GitHub.
- [Read authoring best practices](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/agent-skills/best-practices) for writing effective skills.
- [Use the reference library](https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/tree/main/skills-ref) to validate skills and generate prompt XML.