DEV Community: Ramakrishnan

Agent Skills has a blind spot — and here's how to fix it

Ramakrishnan — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:21:34 +0000

If you've been building with AI coding agents over the past year, you've probably discovered Agent Skills. The premise is elegant: package your workflows as portable, version-controlled skill folders that any agent can pick up and use. Write once, use everywhere.

I've been all-in on it. I opensourced ram-agent-skills — a curated collection of 15 skills blending the Google Conductor workflow with Matt Pocock's agentic patterns. Skills like conductor, grill-me, to-prd, and tdd that I use every day.

But after months of real-world usage, I hit a wall. And I think everyone building serious skills will hit it too.

The problem: skills can't express their human-in-the-loop needs

Here's what I mean. Take the conductor skill. It's a structured development workflow — it generates a spec, gets approval, builds an implementation plan, gets approval again, implements phase by phase, and asks for manual verification before each commit.

Every one of those approval steps requires a human. And today, the only way a skill can ask for human input is to write something like this in its instructions:

"Ask the user for the project name, tech stack, and goal before proceeding."

The agent then improvises a question. The tool renders it however it feels like. The human answers in freeform text. The agent parses whatever comes back.

That's four failure points in a workflow that's supposed to be rigorous.

The result:

The same skill feels completely different in Claude Code vs Cursor vs Copilot
Required inputs can be skipped with no validation
There's no way to express how to ask — a confirmation dialog vs a multi-select vs a ranked priority list
Every tool that implements the spec reinvents human input gathering from scratch

A skill today cannot communicate its UI needs for gathering human input in a generic, tool-agnostic way.

That's the gap.

What the fix looks like

I've been working on a proposal to add a human-interactions field to the Agent Skills spec. The core idea is simple:

A skill adds a single 2-token signal to its SKILL.md frontmatter:

---
name: conductor
description: Structured development track management...
human-interactions: true
---

And a new references/INTERACTIONS.md file holds the full schema — loaded only when the skill is activated, not at startup. This is deliberate. Context bloat killed MCP's usability. We're not repeating that mistake.

The schema lets skill authors declare what to collect and when. The tool decides how to render it.

- id: project-setup
  trigger: before-start
  title: "Set up your conductor track"
  description: "A few details before conductor scaffolds your project"
  on-skip: abort
  fields:
    - id: track-type
      type: single-select
      label: "What kind of work is this?"
      required: true
      options: [Feature, Bug fix, Refactor, Spike]
    - id: scope-notes
      type: textarea
      label: "Describe the goal"
      required: true
      placeholder: "What problem does this solve?"

The same schema — rendered as a rich form in Claude.ai, sequential prompts in a terminal, a chat card in Copilot. Skill authors write intent. Tools handle presentation.

Four trigger types covering 80% of cases

The proposal defines four triggers, each mapping to a real pattern in workflow-heavy skills:

before-start — fires once before execution begins. The place for required context the agent can't infer on its own. Stack, goal, priorities. Collected before the skill body even loads.

on-phase — fires at a named phase boundary. In conductor, this is "spec done — approve before planning" and "plan done — approve before implementing." The phase name is freeform, so it maps to whatever workflow structure your skill uses.

on-demand — agent-initiated. The skill body tells the agent when to invoke it. Used for mid-execution clarification when something ambiguous comes up.

on-confirmation — blocks on explicit human approval before a destructive or irreversible action. With on-skip: abort (the default), skipping halts the skill cleanly — it never silently continues.

Dynamic options: skills that know your codebase

Static option lists are fine for generic skills. But real workflow skills need to meet the user where they are.

The proposal supports dynamic option sources alongside static arrays:

- id: tech-stack
  type: multi-select
  label: "Detected tech stack — confirm or adjust"
  options:
    source: file
    path: package.json
    extract: "frameworks and runtimes from dependencies"
    fallback: [React, Vue, Node.js, Python, Go, Other]

Two sources are proposed for v1:

file — read a file already in the repo, agent extracts the relevant options using the extract hint. No code execution, no new attack surface.
agent — agent infers options from context it already has. Used for things like "which modules in src/ are relevant to this change?"

Script-based dynamic options (running a bundled script to generate options) are explicitly deferred pending a proper sandboxed execution security model. Naming the deferral is important — it keeps the proposal clean without closing the door.

What this means for skill authors

If you're building skills today, this changes how you think about the human-in-the-loop parts of your workflows. Instead of writing:

"Ask the user to confirm before committing."

You write a structured checkpoint that every tool can render correctly:

- id: commit-confirm
  trigger: on-confirmation
  title: "Manual verification — ready to commit?"
  on-skip: abort
  fields:
    - id: verified
      type: confirm
      label: "Verification passed. Commit and continue?"
      required: true

The skill becomes a real contract — not just for the agent, but for the human too.

The reference implementation

To make this concrete, I've updated the conductor skill in ram-agent-skills to use human-interactions, and added a new human-interaction-demo skill that's a fully annotated walkthrough of every feature in the spec — every trigger type, every field type, both static and dynamic options, with comments explaining each choice.

The branch is here: ram-agent-skills/tree/human-interactions-rfc

Join the discussion

This is a draft RFC, not a finished spec. The goal is to get the community's eyes on it before it hardens.

The RFC is open for discussion at agentskills/agentskills#413. A few open questions worth weighing in on:

Should on-phase phase names stay freeform, or should the spec define a base vocabulary for common patterns?
Should collected values be exposed to the agent by structured reference (project-setup.track-type) or injected as natural language?
Are there trigger types or field types missing from the initial set that you'd reach for immediately?

The Agent Skills ecosystem is growing fast — 16k stars, implementations across Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, and more. Getting human-in-the-loop right at the spec level matters. Come tell us what we're missing.

Ramakrishnan Meenakshi Sundaram is a VP Engineering at ANZ Bank and a contributor to the Agent Skills ecosystem. His skill collection is at github.com/ramki982/ram-agent-skills.

The zen and art of co-learning

Ramakrishnan — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:07:12 +0000

The realization struck during an ordinary evening of helping my daughter prepare for her final grade 4 exams. While my wife capably guided her through most subjects, my contribution centered on mathematics and the inter-disciplinary program, primarily social studies. Amidst fractions and historical timelines, a casual remark from my daughter sparked a profound shift in my understanding of learning dynamics. She mentioned that I was "co-learning" with her. This simple phrase unveiled a new perspective: I wasn't in the traditional role of a teacher, a mentor imparting wisdom, or a coach directing skills. Instead, we were engaged in a shared journey of discovery, learning alongside each other. This seemingly novel thought process, born from a personal experience, carries significant implications for how learning is approached within professional environments and enterprises. This post aims to explore this concept of co-learning, suggesting it as an effective and evolved, yet remarkably natural, alternative to conventional teaching methodologies prevalent in today's corporate world. We will delve into the definition and principles of co-learning in professional settings, compare it with traditional corporate training, explore its multifaceted benefits, examine real-world examples of successful implementation, investigate its inherent effectiveness, identify the key characteristics that make it work, explore its impact on fostering a collaborative learning culture, and finally, consider the potential challenges and their corresponding solutions.

Defining Co-Learning in the Enterprise

Co-learning in a professional context is a dynamic, interactive approach where employees learn with and from each other in cohorts. It fosters a social environment for knowledge building and collaborative progress towards shared goals. This method shifts away from instructor-led models to a more communal and participatory style of training. Key principles include the social nature of learning, active engagement with information, context-dependent application, leveraging diverse knowledge, continuous development, and fostering community.

Co-Learning: A Natural Evolution in Workplace Training

Workplace learning has evolved from classroom-based instruction to e-learning, blended learning, and social learning. Co-learning represents the next natural step, integrating learning directly into work through peer collaboration. Unlike traditional training, which can feel obligatory, monotonous, isolating, or perpetuate outdated practices, co-learning emphasizes active participation, shared responsibility, and community support. It moves from an instructor-centric model to a learner-centric one, valuing the contributions of all participants.

Table 1: Co-Learning vs. Traditional Corporate Training

Feature	Co-Learning	Traditional Training
Focus	Learner-centric, collaborative knowledge creation	Instructor-centric, knowledge transmission
Interaction	High, peer-to-peer, with experts	Often low, primarily instructor-to-learner
Engagement	Active, high through participation and community	Passive, can be low
Flexibility	Adaptable, can incorporate various formats	Often rigid schedules and formats
Personalization	High, driven by learner needs and contributions	Can be low, often a "one-size-fits-all" approach
Knowledge Flow	Bottom-up, peer-driven	Top-down, organization-driven
Retention	Generally higher due to active engagement	Can be lower, relies on passive absorption
Cost-Effectiveness	Can leverage internal expertise	May involve significant costs for external trainers/resources

The Enterprise Benefits of Co-Learning

Co-learning offers numerous advantages for businesses. It enhances knowledge retention through active discussion and peer explanation. It fosters collaboration and teamwork, improving communication and strengthening community. The diverse perspectives in co-learning spark innovation and creativity. Employee engagement and motivation increase with active participation and a sense of belonging. Finally, co-learning naturally develops leadership and self-management skills.

Real-World Examples of Co-Learning in Action

Companies like Google with their "Googler-to-Googler" program, AT&T through AT&T University, Perkbox with collaborative learning in 90% of their initiatives, Pailton Engineering where 90% of shop floor staff are trainers, Microsoft's hackathons, Siemens using AI for personalized learning, and Kraft Heinz's trainee programs demonstrate the successful implementation of co-learning across diverse industries.

The Effectiveness of Co-Learning: Backed by Research

Research consistently shows co-learning's effectiveness over traditional methods, leading to higher motivation, self-esteem, communication skills, deeper understanding, better retention, and improved critical thinking. This aligns with the natural human tendency to learn through social interaction.

Key Characteristics of Effective Co-Learning

Successful co-learning programs are often cohort-driven, interactive, learner-centric, practice-oriented, proactive, agile, and have measurable outcomes. They also foster strong communication, build relationships, encourage diversity, support flexibility, establish clear objectives, promote active listening and empathy, and cultivate trust.

Co-Learning: Cultivating a Collaborative Culture

Co-learning is instrumental in building a collaborative and engaging learning culture. It promotes shared learning, open dialogue, active listening, and diverse perspectives. It strengthens team connections and decentralizes learning, empowering employees at all levels to contribute their expertise.

Navigating Challenges in Co-Learning Implementation

Implementing co-learning can present challenges such as uneven participation, diverse learning styles, lack of trust, cultural and language barriers, resistance to change, resource limitations, and assessment difficulties. Solutions include clearly defined objectives, strategic group formation, structured activities, assigned roles, individual accountability, teaching collaboration skills, monitoring group dynamics, utilizing technology, fostering trust, clear communication guidelines, flexible formats, recognizing contributions, and providing adequate resources.

Measuring the Success of Co-Learning Initiatives

Measuring the impact of co-learning involves tracking participation, engagement, performance and skill changes, impact on work relationships, knowledge retention, ROI, utilizing learning analytics, gathering feedback, and aligning with business outcomes. Collaborative learning often leads to improved employee engagement, efficiency, skill development, and career growth.

Conclusion: Embracing the Co-Learning Future

Co-learning offers a powerful and natural alternative to traditional corporate training. Its emphasis on collaboration, active engagement, and continuous learning fosters a more skilled, engaged, and innovative workforce, ready to tackle the evolving challenges of the business world.