# How AI agent skills earn a load in an open-source repo > 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. URL: https://agentskillsguide.dev/ The Agent Skills format, from the file up **The open-source AI Operating System** `.agents/skills/kortix-brand/SKILL.md` ``` --- name: kortix-brand description: "Load FIRST for anything that carries the Kortix look or voice: product or mobile UI, copy of any kind, decks, social, images, email, CLI output, anything with the logo, and reviews of these. Routes you to the exact files. Triggers: choosing a spacing, color, radius, shadow, duration or word that a user or buyer will read." --- ``` Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna/blob/dev/.agents/skills/kortix-brand/SKILL.md Open source. Read it, fork it, audit it. [Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Read the specification](https://agentskills.io/specification) Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free. · Session work reaches main through a change request · Merge is default-deny for agents ## Three skills, three owners One a team writes for itself, one a company ships to every agent, one an agent installs and pins. ### Team rule: The team's review checklist, kept where the agent can find it. The team that owns a release keeps its four checks in a skill, so an agent that touches a release reads the same steps a person does. Skill file: `skills/release-check/SKILL.md` - Migration added: yes - Rollback step: yes - Changelog entry: missing - Feature flag: yes 3 of 4 checks pass ### Brand voice: The house voice, shipped to every agent that writes. Marketing keeps one brand skill in the repo, so support replies, release notes and email land in the same voice without a meeting. Skill file: `skills/brand-voice/SKILL.md` | Channel | Rule | Example | | --- | --- | --- | | Email | Plain sentences | Your invoice is attached | | Release notes | Name the change first | Export now retries twice | | Error copy | Say what failed | Could not save the draft | One voice on three surfaces ### Marketplace: A skill an agent installs, then pins by hash. An agent pulls a skills folder from a public repo and records the source and hash, so the next session runs the same bytes. Skill file: `skills-lock.json` ```diff "skills": { + "pdf-forms": {"source": "github.com/acme/skills", "skillPath": "pdf-forms", "computedHash": "9f2c41…"}, } ``` One skill added, pinned by hash One skill added, pinned by hash ## Where a skill lives decides whether it loads The format is the same in all three places. Discovery and permission are where they differ. | | Kortix (recommended) | A folder in your repo | A vendor skill library | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Open source | Yes | Yes | Yes for the format, the library is hosted | | Where a skill lives | `skills//SKILL.md` in your project repo | A directory the agent's filesystem can read | The vendor workspace, or `~/.claude/skills/` | | Who can load it | A skill in `skills/` loads only when that agent's grant allows it | Any agent that can read the directory | Every member of the API workspace; claude.ai copies stay personal | | How a change is reviewed | A change request a person approves | Whatever review your git host enforces | A new version uploaded to the workspace | | What loads into context | Metadata at startup; Kortix does not put skill bodies in every prompt | Whatever the host agent's loader chooses to read | Metadata at startup, body under 5,000 tokens when triggered | | Who owns the format | The Agentic AI Foundation, under the Linux Foundation | The Agentic AI Foundation, under the Linux Foundation | The Agentic AI Foundation, under the Linux Foundation | ## One format, one foundation, and a repo you own Anthropic handed the format to a neutral foundation, and more than 70 platforms ship it. - **Donated:** Anthropic gave Agent Skills, its name, its logo, its GitHub organization and the agentskills.io domain to the Agentic AI Foundation, which it co-founded with Block and OpenAI; the Model Context Protocol went there too. [announcement](https://www.anthropic.com/news/donating-agent-skills-to-the-agentic-ai-foundation) - **Maintained:** engineers from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and other companies maintain the standard as individuals, with David Soria Parra and Mahesh Murag as lead maintainers. - **Shipped:** more than 70 platforms have integrated Agent Skills, including ChatGPT, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and VS Code. - **Ours:** Agents, skills, memory, tools, triggers and connectors are files in one git repo you own. [Read the docs](https://kortix.com/docs) ## Questions people ask about agent skills ### What are examples of skills in AI agents? A release checklist, a brand voice guide and a PDF form filler are three. Each is a folder with a `SKILL.md`: YAML frontmatter that names it and says when to use it, then Markdown steps an agent follows. ### Are agent skills actually useful? Yes, when the agent can find and load them. A skill keeps a procedure out of every prompt: metadata loads at startup and the body loads only when a task matches, so a large library costs little context. ### What skills do you need to build AI agents? Start with three: one for how your team reviews output, one for how you write, and one for the tool your agents touch most. Write the description line first, because that is what the agent matches a task against. ### Is agent skills replacing MCP? No. MCP connects an agent to outside systems, and a skill teaches it how your company does one job. They run together: an agent can load a billing skill and reach the billing API through an MCP server. ## Give your agents skills they can find. Agents, skills, memory, tools, triggers and connectors are files in one git repo you own. [Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Read the docs](https://kortix.com/docs/project/agents) Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free. · Session work reaches main through a change request · Merge is default-deny for agents