AGENTS.md vs skills

Always-on context (AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md) vs on-demand playbooks (skills).

Takeaways

• Persistent agent files beat piles of skills when the eval is “does the agent follow house rules.”
• Skills shine for multi-step workflows with tools and confirmation gates (/clip, /ingest, /kb-triage).
• Readable plans > opaque tool dumps — AGENTS.md should stay skim-friendly.
• Academic/guardrail AGENTS.md patterns: agent as TA, not silent homework solver.

Vault stance

This vault uses both: root AGENTS.md for layout/conventions; .agents/skills/* for operations. Prefer skills for sequenced work; keep AGENTS short.