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[ARTICLE · art-128553] src=news.ycombinator.com ↗ pub= topic=ai-agents verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Ask HN: Is there an emerging pattern for NEGATIVESKILLS.md files?

A Hacker News user asked whether an emerging pattern exists for NEGATIVESKILLS.md files, proposing that listing explicit antipatterns and bad versions could let agent harnesses with fewer graph nodes perform better. The user said agents increasingly pick skills via regex-based reading, which omits the negative and can produce the opposite of the intended behavior, drawing an analogy to negative prompts for diffusion models. The Ask HN post drew 1 point and 1 comment.

by read1 min views3 publishedSep 13, 2026

I am increasingly hitting cases where agents pick something from skills in part due to regex-based reading, since putting them all in context would be less efficient, leave out the negative, and do something exactly opposite of what is intended. Just like negative prompts for diffusion models, I feel like a negative-skills file listing explicit antipatterns and bad versions could enable harnesses with fewer graph nodes to perform better.

I might be missing some developments, but is there an accepted/shaping way to do this with recent models?

Comments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49688861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49688861)

Points: 1

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