Agent Skills vs Capabilities: How to Model in Practice

When designing AI agents, many teams focus on tools.
But tools alone do not create intelligent systems.

The real architecture separates Capabilities from Agent Skills.

• Capabilities are the tools that execute actions
(API calls, SQL queries, running code, updating systems)

• Agent Skills are the instruction playbooks that guide reasoning
(domain knowledge, workflow logic, decision strategies)

In simple terms:

Skills decide what to do.
Capabilities execute how to do it.

Understanding this distinction is critical when building scalable, enterprise-grade AI agents.

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