Skip to content
AI Learning Playground
LinkedInX
English
English

Loading Only When Needed

About 5 minutes

Shiori
Target audience: Those whose procedure documents are crowding the context, those wanting content loaded only when needed
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of What Are Skills

Once the number of skills grows, passing all of them to the AI stops being viable. Progressive disclosure keeps only summaries in context at all times and loads the full body when it becomes relevant.

Why Not Load Everything

Passing every procedure document creates three problems.

ProblemDescription
Crowded contextThe instructions that matter now get buried under unused procedures
Confused judgmentConstraints from unrelated procedures interfere with the current work
Higher costEvery run processes information that is never used
This table scrolls horizontally. Keyboard users can focus the table and use the left and right arrow keys.

With ten skills available, a given task typically uses one or two. The other eight are pure overhead.

A Two-Stage Structure

graph LR
    Always["Always present\nname + when to use it"] --> Judge["The AI decides"]
    Judge -->|Relevant| Load["Load the body\nthe detailed procedure"]
    Judge -->|Not relevant| Skip["Do not load"]
  • Always present — the skill name and one or two lines on what it does and when it applies
  • Loaded on demand — the actual procedure, decision criteria, and concrete examples

The Summary Decides Everything

Under progressive disclosure the summary is the only evidence available. If it is vague, the skill never loads when needed and effectively does not exist.

# Never loads
Helps with writing articles

# Loads when relevant
Use when creating a new docs article.
Covers required frontmatter fields, internal link conventions, and the verification steps.
Do not use for blog posts.

As with tool descriptions, stating when not to use it improves accuracy.

The Body Can Be Layered Too

When a procedure is long, split the body further. Keep the standard steps in the body and move detailed examples and exception handling into separate files referenced only when needed.

  • Body: the steps needed in the normal case
  • Reference files: exception handling, detailed examples, templates

Summary

  • Progressive disclosure keeps summaries in context and loads bodies on demand
  • The load-everything approach stops working as skills accumulate
  • Write both what the skill does and when it does and does not apply
  • Layer the body further when the procedure is long
Quiz