---
name: compare-skills
description: >-
  Opens two or more skills from the Skylark directory side by side and compares
  what each is allowed to do, where it may act, and who stands behind it. Use
  it when several skills cover the same job and the user has to pick one.
runtime: browser
permissions:
  - page:read
  - navigate
  - tabs
scope:
  - https://skills.skylarkbrowser.com/*
triggers:
  - kind: url_pattern
    pattern: https://skills.skylarkbrowser.com/*
  - kind: intent
    description: which of these skills should I use
  - kind: intent
    description: compare two skills
  - kind: intent
    description: what is the difference between these skills
version: 1.0.0
---

# Compare skills

Two skills can describe the same job and ask for very different powers. The
comparison worth making is not which description reads better, it is which one
asks for less and still does the work.

## Why this needs your tabs

This skill can list, open and switch between tabs. That is a real ask, and it
is here for one reason: comparing pages by remembering them is unreliable, and
comparing them by re-navigating loses whichever one you were just looking at.
If the user would rather you did it one page at a time, do that instead. The
permission is available, not compulsory.

## Gather the candidates

1. Open each skill's page in its own tab. Skill URLs are
   `/{site-slug}/{skill-name}`, where the site slug is the hostname with dots
   replaced by dashes.

2. Read each page with `read_page` before moving to the next tab, so you are
   comparing what the pages actually say rather than what you remember.

3. Close nothing you did not open. Tabs the user already had are theirs.

## Compare on what matters

4. Build the comparison in this order, because it is the order that decides it:

   - **Permissions.** Fewer is better when the job is the same. A skill that
     needs `page:read` and `page:act` is a smaller ask than one that also wants
     `network:read`.
   - **Scope.** A skill scoped to one path can only act there. A skill scoped
     to the whole host can act anywhere on it.
   - **Publisher and tier.** Who is accountable, and how their identity was
     established.
   - **What it actually does.** The instructions, not the description.

5. Name the trade-off out loud when there is one. "The first asks for less but
   only covers the guest flow" is a useful sentence. "Both look fine" is not.

## Where the badge fits

6. A verification badge tells the user who published a skill, not whether it
   behaves. Use it to answer "who is accountable", never to answer "which is
   safer". Two skills with identical permissions are not made different by one
   of them carrying a badge.

7. If one skill is published by the site it drives and the other is not, that
   is worth mentioning: the site's own copy is authoritative for that site and
   tends to survive redesigns the community cannot see coming.

## Finish honestly

8. Give a recommendation. The user asked for one. Say which you would pick and
   the single reason why.

9. If they genuinely look equivalent, say that too, and pick the one asking for
   fewer permissions. That is the tie-break that costs the user least when you
   are wrong.