feat: skills — user-authored on-demand instruction bundles#11
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Adds first-class support for skills using Anthropic's progressive-disclosure
pattern, but executed locally through the Databricks AI Gateway so it works
across every model (Claude / GPT / Gemini / Llama / Qwen / custom).
How it works:
- At chat time, an <available_skills> block is injected into the system
prompt listing each enabled skill's slug + one-line description.
- The model sees the manifest and, when relevant, calls the new built-in
load_skill(slug) tool. The renderer reads the corresponding SKILL.md
body from disk and returns it as the tool result. The model then has
the full instructions for its next turn.
- No beta headers, no Anthropic-specific path, no sandboxed container —
just regular function tools that every chat-capable model supports.
Discovery:
- ~/.mason/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md — user-authored, edited in Settings
- ~/.ai-dev-kit/repo/databricks-skills/<slug>/SKILL.md — auto-discovered,
read-only. Forward-compatible with ai-dev-kit's planned skills-only
releases; the existing MCP path continues to work in parallel.
UI:
- Settings → Skills: list discovered skills with source, description,
enable toggle. + New Skill opens an editor modal (name, description,
markdown body). Edit and delete are user-skill-only. Auto-load toggle
mirrors the MCP tools pattern.
- + icon → Skills: modal mirroring the Tools modal — quick enable/disable
per skill, grouped by source, with counter.
Persistence:
- ~/.mason/config/skills.json: { disabledSkills: [], autoLoadSkills: true }
Format is Anthropic-compatible (YAML frontmatter with name + description,
then markdown body), so user-authored skills are portable to other clients.
Bumps to 1.4.0 since this is a meaningful new surface.
Co-authored-by: Isaac
Co-authored-by: Isaac
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Summary
Adds first-class skills support using Anthropic's progressive-disclosure pattern, but executed locally through the Databricks AI Gateway so it works across every model (Claude / GPT / Gemini / Llama / Qwen / custom endpoints) — no beta headers or sandboxed containers required.
How it works
Discovery
Forward-compatible with ai-dev-kit's planned skills-only releases; existing MCP path continues to work in parallel.
UI
Persistence
Bumps to 1.4.0 — meaningful new surface area, not just a patch.
Test plan
This pull request and its description were written by Isaac.