I think pre-canned "skills" are an anti-pattern with the frontier models. Arguably, these skills already exist within the LLM. We don't need to explain how to do things they already know how to do.
I prefer to completely invert this problem and provoke the model into surfacing whatever desired behavior & capability by having the environment push back on it over time.
You get way more interesting behavior from agents when you allow them to probe their environment for a few turns and feed them errors about how their actions are inappropriate. It doesn't take very long for the model to "lock on" to the expected behavior if you are detailed in your tool feedback. I can get high quality outcomes using blank system prompts with good tool feedback.
I prefer to completely invert this problem and provoke the model into surfacing whatever desired behavior & capability by having the environment push back on it over time.
You get way more interesting behavior from agents when you allow them to probe their environment for a few turns and feed them errors about how their actions are inappropriate. It doesn't take very long for the model to "lock on" to the expected behavior if you are detailed in your tool feedback. I can get high quality outcomes using blank system prompts with good tool feedback.