Skill Templates vs Agents That Learn - Two Approaches to Desktop AI
Skill Templates vs Agents That Learn - Two Approaches to Desktop AI
There are two fundamentally different approaches to desktop AI automation. One gives you templates. The other watches and learns. Both have merit, but they lead to very different outcomes.
The Template Approach
Skill templates are pre-built workflows for common tasks. "Organize my downloads folder" is a template. "Summarize this PDF" is a template. You pick a skill, the agent runs it, job done.
This works well for standardized tasks that most people do the same way. The setup is fast, the behavior is predictable, and you know exactly what the agent will do before it does it.
The limitation is obvious - templates only cover what someone anticipated you would need. Your specific workflow for processing invoices, updating project boards, and notifying stakeholders probably does not have a template.
The Learning Approach
An agent that learns builds its own skill library by observing how you work. It notices that every Friday you export a report from one app, reformat it, and upload it to another. After watching you do this a few times, it offers to handle it.
This approach is slower to start but more powerful over time. The agent's capabilities grow with usage instead of being limited to a predefined set.
They Work Best Together
The ideal system combines both. Templates give you immediate value on day one - common tasks just work. Learning fills in the gaps over time, handling the custom workflows that no template library could anticipate.
The key difference is where the intelligence lives. Templates put it in the hands of the developer who built them. Learning puts it in the hands of the user who knows their own workflow best.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.