Skills, GPTs, Gems, and saved setups

Instructions, live data, and tools are three different layers. Products sell them under a pile of names.

A skill (Grok Skills, Claude skills, similar packs elsewhere) is a reusable way of working: “write like our field guide,” “always show sources,” “use this review checklist.” It loads into the prompt. It does not open Gmail by itself.

Custom GPTs, Gems, and projects mix a brief with optional files and sometimes tools. Useful. Still a snapshot unless a connector is attached. If you only needed a brief, do not also attach the company drive.