[cshimmin]

It's basically just a way for the LLM to lazy-load curated information, tools, and scripts into context. The benefit of making it a "standard" is that future generations of LLMs will be trained on this pattern specifically, and will get quite good at it.

[csomar]

> It's basically just a way for the LLM to lazy-load curated information, tools, and scripts into context.

So basically a reusable prompt like the previous has asked?

[bnchrch]

Ah not exactly.

The way the OP phrased it

> Is a skill essentially a reusable prompt that is inserted at the start of any query?

Actually is a more apt description for a different Claude Code feature called Slash Commands

Where I can create a preset "prompt" and call it with /name-of-my-prompt $ARGS

and this feature is the one that essentially prefixes a Prompt.

The other description of lazy loading is more accurate for Skills.

Where I can tell my Claude Code system: Hey if you need to run our dev server see my-dev-server-skill

and the agent will determine when to pull in that skill if it needs it.

[ActionHank]

Yes, but with more sales magic sprinkled on top.

[prodigycorp]

Does it persist the loaded information for the remainder of the conversation or does it intelligently cull the context when it's not needed?

[dcre]

This question doesn’t have anything to do with skills per se, this is just about how different agents handle context. I think right now the main way they cull context is by culling noisy tool call output. Skills are basically saved prompts and shouldn’t be that long, so they would probably not be near the top of the list of things to cull.

[terminalkeys]

Claude Code subagents keep their context windows separate from the main agent, sending back only the most relevant context based on the main agent's request.

[brabel]

Each agent will do that differently, but Gemini CLI, for example, lets you save any session with a name so you can continue it later.