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Comment by jw1224 | Hacker News Reader

Skills already are "just asking the model". Unless you'd prefer to type out the same instructions every single time?

Skills are literally just Markdown documents that get loaded into context when the /skill-name is invoked.

i belive gp means llms produce what they see in training data/rl there isnt much too much customization you can do with skills.

they are being sold as more powerful than they are. Like llms are intelligent blank slates that can be customized with mere markdown files.

I don't understand this line of criticism exactly. By putting new information in the context window, you are materially changing the activations at your point of sampling, which is literally "customizing with mere markdown files."

Taken to the extreme, the attitude that there is some special incantation that will unlock all capabilities is silly, and a lot of the "prompt engineering" discourse is similarly kind of dumb, but in-context learning is clearly a real thing.

even if that works one time you can never be sure that your customization is in place or fell out of context's important zone or is contradicted by later context . you've reverted back to base llm behavior.

you are treating skill like sure thing

It's as of people crave some sort of control and/or determinism from these chaotic tools, and so they have to believe that these "skills" make a difference

I think they're maybe confusing Skills and MCP servers

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