What Are Agent Skills Beyond Claude?

A practical exploration of what agent skills are beyond Claude's native implementation. The post distinguishes between tools (primitive capabilities), skills (orchestrated workflows using multiple tools), and features (product-level toggles). It examines whether skills must be Markdown files (they don't), compares Python-based deterministic implementations vs. natural-language instruction files, and clarifies the relationship between MCP servers (infrastructure/data access) and agent skills (orchestration logic). A hybrid approach combining Python scripts with Markdown instructions is recommended for production systems, and the pattern is compared to agentic RAG for dynamic context retrieval.