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The metadata is loaded by the harness, but the LLM still needs to choose to load the rest of the skill, no?

You are correct. I'm not sure what the parent is trying to say.

Define “load.” It follows the instructions in the prompt - its natural behavior.

I was using the term as you used in your comment. I believe the official term is "Activation" however:

> Activation: When a task matches a skill’s description, the agent reads the full SKILL.md instructions into context.[1]

> Full instructions load only when a task calls for them, so agents can keep many skills on hand with only a small context footprint.

[1]: https://agentskills.io/home#how-do-agent-skills-work

Ah, I misunderstood this, thanks for the link. You are correct. I was assuming this system worked like CLAUDE.md in that it was deterministically added to the context without the LLM choosing to add it. My mistake.

Concretely, it has to decide whether it is in a circumstance where that skill is useful, pull the instructions into the context and follow them.

Yep, and as with any other instructions, it can sometimes not pull the skill even if the trigger conditions are there.

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