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[FEATURE]: Tool call descriptions as skills #7362

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[FEATURE]: Tool call descriptions as skills#7362
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thdxr

Description

@imqqmi
imqqmi
opened on Jan 8, 2026

Feature hasn't been suggested before.

  • I have verified this feature I'm about to request hasn't been suggested before.

Describe the enhancement you want to request

In the endless quest to reduce the initial token cost I'd like to be able to move all the tool call descriptions to skills I can place globally or in my projects (instead of always placing them in the system prompt). That way I can also improve them and make them more explicit with examples for smaller models that struggle with tool calling. And LLMs with baked in/trained in tool calling might not even need the descriptions anyway, reducing token usage.

In many situations most of the tools aren't even used, so offloading them to skills (or maybe internal skills?) to load them on demand would be great.

Activity

  1. imqqmi
    added
    discussionUsed for feature requests, proposals, ideas, etc. Open discussion
    on Jan 8, 2026
  2. github-actions
    assigned
    thdxr
    on Jan 8, 2026

  3. github-actions commented on Jan 8, 2026

    @github-actions
    github-actionsBot
    on Jan 8, 2026 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

    This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

    Feel free to ignore if none of these address your specific case.

  4. einarpersson commented on Jan 10, 2026

    @einarpersson
    einarpersson
    on Jan 10, 2026

    Yes! This is such a natural thing to do.

    Anything tool related that can be put in a agent file should be able to be moved to a skill file. That would make skills actually useful. It is ironic that it is called "skill" but in the current state it is just "lookup information". Being able to move tool permissions there would actually make skills into.. skills!

  5. imqqmi commented on Jan 11, 2026

    @imqqmi
    imqqmi
    on Jan 11, 2026
    Author

    It could be implemented like this:

    • When no tool call skills are defined by the user the system works as is so that existing configurations work as before
    • When tool call skills exists in either ~/.config/opencode/skills or project /.opencode/skills tool call descriptions won't be loaded in system prompt but just the short skill descriptions
    • Add an option to fully load the skill tool calls instructions into the system prompt so that models that struggle with skills work the same as before, but with the option to fine tune the tool calling and add new tool calls.
    • Option to export tool call descriptions as skills into project folder ie opencode --export-toolcalls . With "opencode --export-toolcalls ." it'll be exported to the project .opencode/skills. No path will export to the global opencode config, or use --global explicitly. Something like that.
    • Check if existing skills interfere with opencode tool call skills before exporting. A --force overwrites them for example. Could add a rename existing skill, but that could be confusing.
    • The models .json file could contain sensible defaults. ie if some models are known to struggle with skill tool calls, default would be to always load them fully into system prompt. LLMs that don't really need tool call instructions could default to no skill descriptions at all, if that will ever happen.
    • One could consider tool call instructions with different verbosity levels so that LLMs that struggle get the full clear description with examples and more capable models can do with more short, concise and succinct instructions without examples. Just like there are different agent prompts for Anthropic, Codex, Qwen with varying degrees of verbosity etc.

    Thoughts?

  6. einarpersson commented on Jan 11, 2026

    @einarpersson
    einarpersson
    on Jan 11, 2026

    Maybe it is because I am tired, but I don't follow

    Why does it have to be so complicated?

    1. Make it possible to add tools (permission) to a SKILL.md frontmatter in the same way as you can in an agent definition file
    2. When a skill which contains tools are loaded then the tools / permissions in it are added to the current session

    I really don't feel opencode need 10x more features , it is already getting hard to grasp. I just want the base features that are already implemented to be more universal, predictable, flexible.

  7. thdxr commented on Mar 25, 2026

    @thdxr
    thdxr
    on Mar 25, 2026
    Member

    To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 90 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.

  8. thdxr
    removed
    discussionUsed for feature requests, proposals, ideas, etc. Open discussion
    on May 3, 2026
  9. rekram1-node
    closed this as not plannedon May 22, 2026
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