Skills-Based Agent Design

Skills-Based Agent Design Pattern

Definition

An agent instruction approach where capabilities are explicitly defined as discrete, named skills with clear inputs/outputs and usage guidelines, rather than relying on agents to infer capabilities from documentation.

Examples in the Wild

  • Example 1:Agents given explicit skill definitions like 'search_database', 'calculate_metric'
  • Example 2:Skill-based prompting vs documentation-based prompting comparison