A plain summary, so you can get the gist here without leaving.
A skill is a small folder with a SKILL.md file that teaches an AI coding agent a habit once, so it applies it every time. This free course teaches you to write ones that actually get used.
What a skill is
A skill is a folder with a single SKILL.md file: a short piece of metadata that names the skill and says when to use it, plus a body of Markdown instructions. The agent reads all the names and descriptions at startup, and loads the full body only when a task matches. That two-step loading is called progressive disclosure, and it keeps the agent's limited context free for the actual work.
The upshot is simple. You package a rule once, in plain language, and any compatible agent picks it up automatically. No more repeating yourself every session.
What the course covers
Eleven short modules take you from the format to a finished, validated skill. They cover the SKILL.md spec, writing descriptions that get picked up (the most common failure point), progressive disclosure and token economics, the patterns that work and the anti-patterns that do not, shipping across different hosts, and maintaining a library over time.
Alongside the modules sits a compiled wiki of more than forty articles, distilled from nineteen real repositories. It ends with a guided build using a Skill Maker, so you finish with a real skill, not just notes.
Why it is worth your time
If you have ever repeated yourself to an AI agent (use pnpm not npm, run the tests before committing, check the auth code), skills are how you stop. Writing good ones is a craft: the description has to earn its place, the body has to stay lean, and it has to work across tools.
This is the most thorough free guide to that craft, written for people who want production quality rather than a toy. It is by Akshat, one of the Oslo Vibe Coding organisers.
- A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md: metadata plus instructions.
- Progressive disclosure loads the name first, the body only when needed.
- The description is the number-one thing to get right.
- Eleven modules plus a forty-article wiki, free and hands-on.
- By Akshat, one of the Oslo Vibe Coding organisers.
Akshat Jain
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