Human-built vs auto-generated agent skills
Toby Banks — Founder, Skillzy
The dispatch
New listings, creator interviews, the occasional discount. Every other Friday.
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and the rest are all shipping skill libraries. Most of what fills them is model-generated — plausible, generic, and never run against a real business on a bad day.
The gap auto-generation cannot close
A generated skill knows what a quote looks like. It does not know that this trade always gets burned on variations, or that this clinic must never confirm a booking without a deposit. That knowledge comes from doing the job, getting it wrong, and fixing it.
What human-built actually buys you
- It has failed already — somewhere other than your business
- It stops at the lines a person decided were dangerous
- Someone can tell you why it works, not just that it does
Why this is the whole point
Every skill here was built by someone who needed it, ran it, and sells it because it held up. That is not a feature we added. It is the only reason to choose a marketplace over a generated list inside a model.
Featured listingPatterns for prompts that hold up.
Prompt patterns that survive a model upgrade.
Agent prompt patterns · $24 →Featured listingYour first SKILL.md, the right way.
The short version of "how to publish a skill people will actually buy."
Your first SKILL.md, the right way · $9 →Liked this? Get the next one.
Field Notes, every other Friday. No spam.
Skill vs Guide vs Agent Setup: which to buy first
Three things on the marketplace, one of them is right for where you are. Here is how to tell.
What to check before you trust a skill from a marketplace
A five-minute review that tells you whether a skill is safe to point at your real business.
What is a SKILL.md file (and why it matters in 2026)
The single file that turns a general AI into a specialist at one job — explained without the jargon.