Anthropic's Agent Skills: An Open Standard?
Published:Dec 19, 2025 01:09
•1 min read
•Simon Willison
Analysis
This article discusses Anthropic's decision to open-source their "skills mechanism" as Agent Skills. The specification is noted for its small size and under-specification, with fields like `metadata` and `allowed-skills` being loosely defined. The author suggests it might find a home in the AAIF, similar to the MCP specification. The open nature of Agent Skills could foster wider adoption and experimentation, but the lack of strict guidelines might lead to fragmentation and interoperability issues. The experimental nature of features like `allowed-skills` also raises questions about its immediate usability and support across different agent implementations. Overall, it's a potentially significant step towards standardizing agent capabilities, but its success hinges on community adoption and further refinement of the specification.
Key Takeaways
- •Anthropic has open-sourced their agent skills mechanism as Agent Skills.
- •The Agent Skills specification is intentionally small and under-specified.
- •The specification's future may involve integration with the AAIF.
Reference
“Clients can use this to store additional properties not defined by the Agent Skills spec”