Agent Skills Guide An independent guide to the Agent Skills format: what a SKILL.md holds, how an agent decides to load one, how skills differ from MCP, and how a team keeps them in a repo it owns. https://agentskillsguide.dev/ 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z Agent Skills Guide Open Source Agent Skills: What Makes a Skill Load https://agentskillsguide.dev/ 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z Agent skills load when the agent finds them in the repo and a grant allows it. See how Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System, does it. A skill works when the agent can find it in the repo, read a description that matches the task, and load it under a rule a person approved. Kortix is open source, and it runs that path end to end, from the description line to the grant that allows a load. Open source agent skills: a SKILL.md, a load order and a grant https://agentskillsguide.dev/what-are-agent-skills 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z An agent skill is a SKILL.md folder an agent loads on demand. Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System, shows the load levels and the grant. An agent skill is a folder holding a SKILL.md file: YAML frontmatter with a name and a description, then Markdown instructions, with optional scripts and reference files beside them. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and a skill in a Kortix project lives at skills/<name>/SKILL.md. Agent skills vs MCP: why an open-source setup needs both mechanisms https://agentskillsguide.dev/agent-skills-vs-mcp 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z Agent skills carry your team's procedure; MCP carries the connection to your systems. Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System, grants both apart. Agent skills and MCP answer two different questions. MCP gives an agent a way to reach a system; a skill gives it your team’s procedure for the job, and swapping one for the other leaves agents more connected and no more correct. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and it keeps both in one repo, granted apart. Agent Skills Examples: Three Open-Source SKILL.md Files https://agentskillsguide.dev/agent-skills-examples 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z Three complete SKILL.md files from Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System, each with the description that makes an agent load it. Agent skills examples are easy to copy, and getting an agent to load one is the hard part. A router, a release checklist and a link check show three complete SKILL.md files, each with a description written for the moment the task appears. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and a skill in a Kortix project is skills/<name>/SKILL.md. Open source agent skills in your repo: grants, review, and a lockfile https://agentskillsguide.dev/agent-skills-in-your-repo 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z Keep agent skills in your repo with Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System: grants, review and a hash on every borrowed skill. Skills live as folders in your git repo, and which agent may load which one is a grant in kortix.yaml. The lookup order resolves a duplicated name, a change request reviews whatever the agent proposes, and a lockfile pins a skill that came from another repository. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System.