I Was Wrong About Agent Skills and How I Refactor
Summary
The post discusses a developer's reconsideration of their approach to organizing agent capabilities and skills in Claude-based systems. The author initially believed in structuring agent functionality around discrete "skills" as separate modules, but through practical experience, they discovered limitations and inefficiencies in this architecture.
Key Points:
Original Approach: The author organized agent capabilities as isolated skill modules, assuming this would improve maintainability and reusability
Discovered Problems: This structure led to increased complexity, redundant code, and made it harder for Claude to reason about interconnected tasks
Core Issue: Breaking functionality into too granular "skills" created artificial boundaries that didn't reflect how tasks actually interconnect in real-world scenarios
New Understanding: Agent capabilities work better when organized around workflows and domains rather than micro-level skills
Better Practice: Grouping related capabilities together and allowing Claude to understand the full context of interconnected operations leads to better reasoning and performance
Refactoring Strategy: The author now focuses on organizing code by business domain and workflow patterns rather than trying to create perfectly isolated, reusable skills
Practical Takeaway: When building Claude-based agents, prioritize coherent task domains and workflow organization over creating maximally reusable, isolated skill components.
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