Skill vs Agent
A skill has no decision-making of its own — it's a packaged set of instructions, sitting inert until something loads it. An AI agent is what actually decides its own next action, including whether a given skill's instructions are even relevant right now. A skill can't act; it can only tell an agent that's already deciding things how to approach one kind of task well.
What a skill is
Instructions for one kind of task, kept out of an agent's prompt until that task actually comes up. It's the same words either way — loaded or not — with no judgment of its own about when it should apply; that judgment belongs to whatever loads it. Learn more: Agent Skills.
What an agent is
A system that decides its own sequence of actions toward a goal — deciding, acting, observing the result, and deciding again. Recognizing that a task matches an available skill, and choosing to load it, is itself one of the decisions an agent makes along the way. Learn more: AI Agent.
Side by side
| Skill | Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Decides anything? | No — it's loaded or it isn't | Yes — that's the entire definition |
| Can act on its own? | No — it still needs tools, called by an agent | Yes — that's what the decision loop produces |
| Exists without the other? | No — a skill with nothing to load it does nothing | Yes — an agent can run with no skills at all |
| Relationship | One of the things an agent can choose to use | What chooses when a skill applies |
Why this is worth being precise about
"Skill" and "agent" both get used loosely enough in casual conversation that a skill can sound like it's doing something on its own — it isn't. Nothing happens until an agent recognizes a task matches a skill's description and decides to load it. The skill itself never decides anything; it's the passive half of that relationship, and the agent is the active one.
Who's deciding, in one example
An agent handling a request notices it matches a skill's description for "reviewing a pull request," and loads that skill's full instructions. The skill didn't reach out and insert itself — the agent's own decision-making is what made that happen. Take the agent away and the same skill just sits there, unloaded, doing nothing at all.
In this guide
FAQ
Is a skill a simpler kind of agent?
No — it isn't a kind of agent at all. An agent decides; a skill is decided about. Even a very simple agent still has the one thing a skill categorically lacks: the ability to choose what happens next.