Day 5: Skills, MCP, and Reusable Capabilities

Skills and MCP integrations solve different problems. Skills package repeatable behavior. MCP exposes external tools and data through a standard interface. Together they keep your assistant extensible without making every prompt enormous.

When to create a skill

Create a skill when the same workflow appears repeatedly:

• The input shape is predictable.
• The output format is stable.
• The rules are easy to document.
• The workflow benefits from examples.

When to use MCP

Use MCP when Hermes Agent needs structured access to an external system: repository context, docs search, issue trackers, databases, design tools, or internal APIs.

Keep boundaries sharp

A skill should not become a junk drawer. If it says it reviews release notes, it should not also deploy infrastructure. Separate responsibilities make agent behavior easier to predict.

Your task

Choose one repeated prompt from your last week of work. Convert it into a skill outline with purpose, inputs, steps, output format, and one example. Then decide whether it needs an MCP server or only existing local tools.