Skill
A teachable capability bundled as a unit, kept out of the context window until a pointer pulls it in.
A skill is a teachable capability packaged as a unit: a directory with instructions, references, and sometimes scripts, describing how to do one specific kind of work well. The full contents stay out of the context window. What sits in the context is a context pointer, the skill's name and a one-line description, and the agent loads the details only when a task matches.
This is the same trick as a context pointer, applied to a body of knowledge rather than a single document, and it scales: a team can accumulate fifty skills without paying for any of them until one is needed.
The distinction from a document is that a skill is meant to be executed. It usually carries the sequence of steps, the pitfalls, and the templates, so that an agent can follow it rather than merely read about it. A skill that only explains a topic is a document with extra steps.
Related terms
Context Pointer
A mention in one document that points to another, so the agent can pull it in only when the task calls for it.
Progressive Disclosure
Show the model only the detail it needs right now, and load more when it asks.
AGENTS.md
A file in the environment that the harness loads into the context at session start: the project's standing brief to the agent.
Memory
A system's ability to carry information from one request to the next.
Context Engineering
Deciding what goes into the model's context, and what stays out.
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