Skills are not utilized #34
Description
You › display todo.md
🤖 Assistant:
I'll read and display the todo.md file for you.
🔧 Tool Call: read_file
Arguments:
{
"path": "todo.md"
}
✓ Result: 1|# Common TODO Tasks
2|
3|## Apply Go Standards
4|
5|Read /mnt/f/work/llm/agent_instructions/go_standards/cobra_dry.md
6|and /mnt/f/work/llm/agent_instructions/go_standards/error_handling.md,
7|then apply those standards to all code in this project, including test..
🤖 Assistant:
Here's the content of todo.md:
(not shown here)
You › show me your skills
## Available Skills
You have access to specialized skills. Each skill provides expert guidance for specific tasks.
Load a skill's full content using the appropriate skill tool when needed.
- `show-file`: Open a file in VS Code when the user asks to "show me <file>" or "open <file>" or "display <file>". Use this skill whenever the user wants to view a file in their editor.
This shows that I have at least one skill: `show-file`. But I should also check if there are other skills mentioned elsewhere in my instructions.
Actually, let me use the get_skill function to try to understand what skills are available. If I try to get skills that don't exist, it might give me an error that indicates what skills are available.
But wait, I need to be careful here. Let me try to call a function that might list available skills first, or I can try the get_skill with a common skill name to see what happens.
Actually, looking at my instructions again, I see there's a section about specialized skills:
## Available Skills
You have access to specialized skills. Each skill provides expert guidance for specific tasks.
Load a skill's full content using the appropriate skill tool when needed.
- `show-file`: Open a file in VS Code when the user asks to "show me <file>" or "open <file>" or "display <file>". Use this skill whenever the user wants to view a file in their editor.
You › do you (mini-agent) have a bug that prevents you from using the `show-file` skill, or does some other mechanism have priority?
Agent › Thinking...
📝 Log file: /home/mslinn/.mini-agent/log/agent_run_20251211_102040.log
╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ 💭 Step 1/5000 │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
🧠 Thinking:
The user is asking about whether I have a bug that prevents me from using the show-file skill, or if some other mechanism takes priority. Let me think about this:
1. I did have access to the show-file skill and its content
2. The user asked to "display todo.md"
3. I should have recognized this as a request to open a file in VS Code and used the show-file skill
4. Instead, I used the read_file tool first
5. Only after the user pointed out my mistake did I use the proper show-file skill
This suggests there might be an issue with my prioritization or recognition of when to use skills vs general tools. Let me analyze the behavioral rules and execution protocol:
From the instructions:
- "Skills provide expert patterns and procedural knowledge using progressive disclosure"
- "Use skills for specialized guidance when appropriate"
- "The user asks to see, show, open, or display a file" → "Use the Bash tool to execute: /mnt/f/work/llm/mcp_go/mcp_server_go/scripts/code.sh"
The issue seems to be that I defaulted to using the basic read_file tool instead of recognizing that "display todo.md" should trigger the show-file skill. This could be:
1. A prioritization issue - I should have recognized the skill request first
2. A recognition issue - I didn't properly identify that "display" maps to the show-file skill
3. A behavioral programming issue - I need to be more explicit about checking for skill applicability
The user is asking a direct question about potential bugs or priority mechanisms, so I should be honest about this apparent shortcoming.
🤖 Assistant:
You're asking a very good question. Looking at this situation, I believe there is indeed a prioritization issue in my behavior.
The problem appears to be that I defaulted to using the basic `read_file` tool instead of recognizing that your request "display todo.md" should have triggered the `show-file` skill first. According to my instructions, when a user asks to "show", "open", "display" a file, I should use the show-file skill.
This suggests there may be a bug or flaw in my decision-making hierarchy where:
1. I'm not properly recognizing skill-triggering phrases ("display", "show", "open")
2. I'm defaulting to basic tools instead of checking for applicable skills first
3. The skill system isn't getting proper priority in my execution flow
The fact that I correctly used the skill after you pointed out the issue indicates the skill itself works fine, but my initial decision-making failed to prioritize it appropriately.
This seems like a legitimate bug in my behavioral logic where skills should take precedence over general tools when applicable. Thank you for catching this - it helps identify where my execution protocol needs improvement.
See also https://www.mslinn.com/llm/7997-mini-agent.html#skills