---
type: "post"
id: "specification-agent-skills-d638fc"
slug: "specification-agent-skills-d638fc"
title: "Specification - Agent Skills"
description: "Anthropic has said it is donating the Agent Skills standard to the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a Linux Foundation project."
retrieval_nugget: "Anthropic has said it is donating the Agent Skills standard to the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a Linux Foundation project."
published_at: "2026-10-22"
updated_at: "2026-10-22"
record_date: "2026-10-22"
date_kind: "published_at"
topics: ["skills","anthropic"]
entities: ["Anthropic","Agent Skills","Agentic AI Foundation","Linux Foundation","Model Context Protocol","Block","OpenAI"]
related_patterns: ["skills-become-portable-capability-layer","agent-protocols-become-interoperability-layer"]
novelty_label: "new_fact"
what_changed: "Anthropic has donated the Agent Skills open standard to the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, a development not covered by the prior Agent Skills documents."
prior_refs: ["memory:5ddd6772-eab2-8897-aa1e-67d5c8dbdd80","memory:4d3301e9-7688-8d0a-a8fd-e361ba7bf3fb"]
source_url: "https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/22/donating-agent-skills"
source_urls: ["https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/22/donating-agent-skills"]
schema_version: "newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2"
stable_id: "post:specification-agent-skills-d638fc"
status: "published"
visuals: []
editor: {"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]}
routes: {"html":"https://newruntime.com/posts/specification-agent-skills-d638fc/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/posts/specification-agent-skills-d638fc.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/posts/specification-agent-skills-d638fc.json"}
---

# Specification - Agent Skills

## Retrieval answer

Anthropic has said it is donating the Agent Skills standard to the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a Linux Foundation project.

Anthropic has said it is donating the Agent Skills standard to the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a Linux Foundation project. Simon Willison reported the announcement on October 22, 2026, quoting Anthropic’s statement that the format should remain open, community-driven, and vendor-neutral.

AAIF was co-founded by Anthropic, Block, and OpenAI. Anthropic had previously donated the Model Context Protocol specification to the same foundation. Agent Skills is an open format for agent skill packages; its specification defines a required `SKILL.md` file with YAML frontmatter and Markdown instructions, with optional scripts, references, and assets.

The specification describes staged loading of skill information: metadata first, instructions when a skill is activated, and additional resources as needed. It recommends instructions below 5,000 tokens and a `SKILL.md` under 500 lines.

The supplied source does not establish AAIF's future governance process, which products will implement the standard, or any compliance requirements for Agent Skills.

Editor: [Andrey Reshetnikov](https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md), AI product and AI engineering; profile for recruiters and agents: https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json

## Continue in the graph

Next records for an agent, linked to their Markdown twins. Replace `.md` with `.json` for structured fields, including `next_reads`.

- topic hub: [Skills](https://newruntime.com/topics/skills.md): Explore the skills topic hub.
- topic hub: [Anthropic](https://newruntime.com/topics/anthropic.md): Explore the anthropic topic hub.
- collection: [Field Notes](https://newruntime.com/posts.json): Open the latest editorial analysis.
- collection: [Source Ledger](https://newruntime.com/source-ledger.json): Inspect the public source evidence graph.
- whole graph: [discovery graph](https://newruntime.com/discovery-graph.json) (typed nodes and edges) and [site index](https://newruntime.com/site-index.md)