Evolution of the Prompt
Anthropic recently popularized “skills” in coding agents and cool tools like Claude Code and Gemini CLI. These allow agents to understand how to perform various tasks efficiently without needing to re-prompt every time based on the respective task. Skills fixed the traditional problem with LLM interactions, which was the constant need to re-prompt. Skills act as saved prompts that you can trigger instantly, which is a massive time saver if you manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
Before Skills was widely rolled out, I would manually save prompts in Google Keep or Google Docs and pin them to my browser for various prompts. For code, I stored context in .md files, which is exactly how skills operate today. Having these skills directly in Gemini in Chrome is a game-changer because the AI can see, reason, and act on all your open tabs at once. So it’s able to synthesize data from across your entire browser window and act simultaneously.
Safety and Privacy
If you're worried about the AI booking things or emailing people without your permission, don't be. Gemini requires a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) confirmation before sending or submitting anything, and trust me, it's not easy to bypass. I've tried. And for those concerned about privacy in general, Google added a local 4GB model on your computer called Gemini Nano, which is able to perform many tasks locally without sending any of your data to the cloud.
Engineering Workflow Skills
1. Convert to Notes
Prompt: You are an expert student with superb comprehension skills. Your task is to summarize the active tab, providing high-impact bullet points for the [Main Ideas], [Steps/Process], and [Key Vocabulary]. If the text contains data, present a summary table of the most critical figures.
- Why I love it: I use this to quickly synthesize long articles or documentation into short, actionable bullet points to write down or just summarize.
2. Live Mock Interviewer
Prompt: Act as a Senior Software Engineer at a FAANG company. I am looking at this LeetCode problem. Do not give me the answer. Instead, ask me clarifying questions about the constraints, challenge my initial assumptions, and push for details on time and space complexity. Give me a 'nudge' or hint only if I am completely stuck for more than two minutes.
- Why I love it: It’s perfect for practicing technical interview patterns and learning new algorithms through live feedback and guidance.
3. Competitor Intelligence
Prompt: Analyze the landing page of the startup in this tab. Identify their unique value proposition, pricing structure, and target audience. Compare this to the industry leaders in this space and find three gaps in their product that my own project could solve.
- Why I love it: When researching for my own apps or companies, I use this to break down a competitor’s strategy and find gaps in their product without reading their entire site.
4. Legal/Privacy Decoder
Prompt: Scan this Privacy Policy for critical risk signals. Specifically, audit the text for: 1. Data ownership (does the user retain rights?), 2. Third-party sharing (who gets my data?), and 3. Automatic renewals. Flag these as [Critical], [High Risk], or [Warning] and explain the plain-English implication of each.
- Why I love it: Most people skip the fine print, but I use this to audit Terms of Service for red flags so I know my data stays safe.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Skills
- Open the Gemini Sidebar: Click the Gemini icon in the top-right corner of your browser. Then, click the plus icon at the bottom left of the panel.
- Access the Skills Manager: Click the Skills button. From there, select Manage Skills, which will open the settings in a new window.
- Explore or Create: On the left sidebar, you’ll see Browse Skills and Your Skills. Use 'Browse Skills' to see Google’s premade options for inspiration. To make your own, click Your Skills.
- Build Your Skill: Click the Add button. Fill in a name and your specific instructions.