Agent Skills

This article discusses the Agent Skills project, which aims to embed senior engineer practices—such as writing specs, tests, and scope discipline—into AI coding agents. It explains how agents default to taking the shortest path to completion, skipping invisible but critical steps. The project uses markdown 'skills' as workflows with exit criteria, not just reference documentation, to enforce processes like test-driven development. With over 27K stars, it maps to standard SDLC and Google engineering practices, offering a scaffold for reliable software delivery. The article details design choices and how to apply these concepts even without installing the project.