AI Coding Tip 030 - Script Your Skills, Not Your Prompts

Writing scripts instead of prompts for repeatable tasks improves determinism, reduces token usage, and prevents accidental secrets exposure. This approach involves listing skill steps, writing a real script, moving credentials to a .env file, adding retries and timeouts, and covering the script with unit tests. Review the script once and let it run the same way forever, keeping the model responsible for judgment calls. This benefits determinism, reduces costs, and prevents security risks.