Add information about the agent skills lifecycle and clarify docs-writer skill metadata.

[g-samroberts]

Summary

Add information about the agent skills lifecycle and clarify docs-writer skill metadata.

Closes #18233

Pre-Merge Checklist

• [ X] Updated relevant documentation and README (if needed)
• Added/updated tests (if needed)
• Noted breaking changes (if any)
• Validated on required platforms/methods:
  • MacOS
    • npm run
    • npx
    • Docker
    • Podman
    • Seatbelt
  • Windows
    • npm run
    • npx
    • Docker
  • Linux
    • npm run
    • npx
    • Docker

[gemini-cli]

Hi @g-samroberts, thank you so much for your contribution to Gemini CLI! We really appreciate the time and effort you've put into this.

We're making some updates to our contribution process to improve how we track and review changes. Please take a moment to review our recent discussion post: Improving Our Contribution Process & Introducing New Guidelines.

Key Update: Starting January 26, 2026, the Gemini CLI project will require all pull requests to be associated with an existing issue. Any pull requests not linked to an issue by that date will be automatically closed.

Thank you for your understanding and for being a part of our community!

[gemini-cli]

Hi there! Thank you for your contribution to Gemini CLI.

To improve our contribution process and better track changes, we now require all pull requests to be associated with an existing issue, as announced in our recent discussion and as detailed in our CONTRIBUTING.md.

This pull request is being closed because it is not currently linked to an issue. Once you have updated the description of this PR to link an issue (e.g., by adding Fixes #123 or Related to #123), it will be automatically reopened.

How to link an issue:
Add a keyword followed by the issue number (e.g., Fixes #123) in the description of your pull request. For more details on supported keywords and how linking works, please refer to the GitHub Documentation on linking pull requests to issues.

Thank you for your understanding and for being a part of our community!

[gemini-code-assist]

Summary of Changes

Hello @g-samroberts, I'm Gemini Code Assist¹! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request enhances the Gemini CLI documentation by providing a comprehensive explanation of the agent skill lifecycle. It clarifies how skills are activated, remain active during specific tasks, and implicitly deactivate upon task completion, thereby improving user understanding of skill management and behavior.

Highlights

• Agent Skill Lifecycle Documentation: Added a new section detailing the activation, duration, and implicit deactivation of agent skills within the Gemini CLI, providing clarity on their operational lifecycle.
• Documentation Heading Refinement: Simplified the heading "How it Works (Security & Privacy)" to "How it Works" for improved readability and focus.

Changelog

• docs/cli/skills.md
  • Renamed the "How it Works (Security & Privacy)" section to "How it Works".
  • Introduced a new subsection "Skill Activation and Deactivation" to describe the process of skill activation, its duration, and implicit deactivation.

Ignored Files

• Ignored by pattern: .gemini/** (1)
  • .gemini/skills/docs-writer/SKILL.md

Activity

• The author has marked the "Updated relevant documentation and README (if needed)" item in the pre-merge checklist as complete.

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[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request aims to improve the documentation for agent skills. I've identified a significant issue in the new documentation regarding the skill lifecycle: it incorrectly states that skills are implicitly deactivated. My review of the code indicates that skills remain active for the entire session once enabled. This discrepancy should be corrected to prevent user confusion. Additionally, the changes related to 'docs-writer skill metadata' mentioned in the PR title and description seem to be missing from this pull request.

[github-actions]

Size Change: -2 B (0%)

Total Size: 23.7 MB

ℹ️ View Unchanged

Filename	Size	Change
./bundle/gemini.js	23.7 MB	-2 B (0%)
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-closed.sb	1.03 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-open.sb	890 B	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-proxied.sb	1.31 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-closed.sb	3.29 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-open.sb	3.36 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-proxied.sb	3.56 kB	0 B

_{compressed-size-action}

[g-samroberts]

/gemini review

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request improves the documentation for Agent Skills by clarifying their lifecycle. The heading for the 'How it Works' section has been generalized, and a new 'Skill Activation' section has been added to explain that skills remain active throughout a session once enabled. These changes make the documentation clearer and more comprehensive. The changes are well-implemented and I have no further feedback.

[jkcinouye]

LGTM, one nit