# AGENTS.md vs. skills: How to steer a coding agent

DevFeed: [AGENTS.md vs. skills: How to steer a coding agent](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/agents-md-vs-skills-how-to-steer-a-coding-agent-13348.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://circleci.com/blog/agents-md-vs-skills/>)

Author: Jacob Schmitt

Published: 2026-08-11T16:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The CircleCI Blog Feed | CircleCI](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-circleci-blog-feed-circleci.md>)

Topics: [AI-assisted coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-assisted-coding.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/coding.md>), [OpenAI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openai.md>), [anthropic](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/anthropic.md>)

Tags: [ai-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-development.md>), [anthropic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/anthropic.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/coding.md>), [coding-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/coding-agents.md>), [config](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/config.md>), [documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/documentation.md>), [evals](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/evals.md>), [openai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openai.md>)

## AI overview

This article compares AGENTS.md and skills as ways to steer coding agents. AGENTS.md provides always-on repository context, while skills are modular instruction bundles loaded on demand for specialized or procedural tasks. The article recommends using a concise AGENTS.md for stable, broadly applicable guidance and skills for situational procedures, with reproducible evaluations used to determine whether the guidance changes agent behavior.

## Source excerpt

AGENTS.md or skills? The format matters less than whether your steering actually changes agent behavior. Learn how to test agent config with reproducible evals in your pipeline.