Shell + Skills + Compaction: Tips for long-running agents that do real work | OpenAI Developers

What this post added

This post introduces and elaborates on three new agentic primitives: Skills (reusable, versioned instructions), an upgraded Shell tool (hosted or local containerized execution environment), and server-side Compaction (automatic context window management for long runs). It provides practical tips and build patterns for effectively using these primitives together to enable long-horizon agents to perform real knowledge work, focusing on reliability, security, and developer experience.