Agent skills for Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI: examples, bundled skills and your own

What is an agent skill?

An agent skill is a folder that contains a SKILL.md file: YAML frontmatter with a name and a description, followed by Markdown instructions. The folder can also hold scripts, templates or reference files that the instructions point to. Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other agents read skills from known folders on your computer or in your repo.

Skills load on demand. The agent sees each skill's name and description up front and reads the full instructions only when a task matches, so a long list of skills costs little until one is needed. That makes the description the most important line in the file.

What do real skills look like? Examples from Tallos

Tallos ships seven skills inside the app. Each one does a single job and has a description that says exactly when to use it, which makes them useful examples of how to scope a skill.

The orchestration skill is what lets one agent coordinate others, the same machinery the leader uses in squads. Tallos also ships linear-tickets, the older name of tallos-linear, so installs made under that name keep resolving.

The installed files are short on purpose: they tell the agent when to use Tallos, then load the full, version-matched guide from the tallos command. How that works, and every command group, is on the tallos CLI and skills page.

How does Tallos install skills into Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI?

Automatically and offline. Shortly after the app starts, Tallos detects the coding agents installed on your computer and copies its bundled skills into each one's global skills folder. Nothing is downloaded: no npx, no repository clone.

• First launch: installs every bundled skill for each detected agent.
• Later launches: repairs skills that went missing, and reinstalls when a Tallos update changes the bundled skills or when a newly installed agent is detected.
• No agent yet: nothing is written. Install an agent, then click Install now or let the next launch pick it up.
• Failures retry: a skill that fails to install is tried again on the next launch.
• Local edits survive the automatic pass: it never discards changes made to an installed copy. Reinstall replaces modified copies of Tallos's own skills with the shipped version.

How do I reinstall or check Tallos skills?

Open Settings → General and find Agent skills in the Tallos CLI section. Install now appears when the skills aren't detected and Reinstall once they are; both run the same offline install. Re-check refreshes the status.

If no coding agent is detected, Tallos tells you to install one, such as Claude Code or Codex, and try again. Connect your agents walks through that. The one-click install writes to this computer; for a remote runtime, Tallos keeps a terminal-based install instead.

Give your agents Tallos skills

Install Tallos and your agents get its skills on first launch. No setup step, no download.

Get Tallos →

How do I write my own Claude Code skill?

Create a folder, add a SKILL.md with a clear name and description, and put it where your agent reads skills. For Claude Code, that is ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ for a personal skill or .claude/skills/<name>/ inside a repository to share it with your team.

1. 1

   Pick one job

   A skill should do one thing well: draft release notes, follow your migration conventions, triage a flaky test. Split broad topics into several skills.

2. 2

   Create the folder

   Name it in lowercase with hyphens, for example release-notes, and use the same value for name in the frontmatter.

3. 3

   Write the description first

   The agent decides when to load the skill from its description. Say what it does and when to use it, with the words people actually type: "release notes", "changelog", "what shipped".

4. 4

   Keep the instructions short

   Numbered steps, exact commands and what to avoid. Move long reference material into separate files in the folder and point to them from SKILL.md.

5. 5

   Test it in a fresh session

   Start a new agent session and ask for the task in plain words. If the skill doesn't load, sharpen the description.

---
name: release-notes
description: >-
  Draft release notes from the commits since the last git tag. Use when
  the user asks for release notes, a changelog entry, or what shipped
  in a version.
---

# Release notes

1. Find the last tag: `git describe --tags --abbrev=0`.
2. List the commits since that tag: `git log <tag>..HEAD --oneline`.
3. Group the changes under Features, Fixes and Internal.
4. Write one plain-language line per change. Skip version bumps.
5. Save the result to `RELEASE_NOTES.md` and show a short summary.

Keep a skill in the repo when it encodes team conventions, and in your home folder when it is personal. A skill in .claude/skills is committed like any other file, so it exists in every parallel workspace Tallos creates from that repo.

Do my existing skills keep working with Tallos?

Yes. Tallos only installs and repairs its own bundled skills; skills from other sources are never touched. Agents started in Tallos run as they do in any terminal, so they keep loading every personal and project skill they already know about.

Skills and MCP complement each other. A skill is instructions; an MCP server is a tool connection to an outside system. A good skill often tells the agent when to call a specific MCP tool.