This week brought exciting new tools and updates for AI agents that help coders write and manage code. These AI agents can now work almost on their own, handling big projects from start to finish.

One big announcement was that Anthropic released a new open standard for Agent Skills. Think of skills like instruction sets that teach AI helpers how to do specific jobs. These skills are now portable, meaning they can work across different AI platforms, not just one. OpenAI has already adopted similar technology, showing that different AI companies are working together to make these tools better. The skills let developers manage things like brand guidelines, email templates, and task creation all in one place.

Claude Code also got an upgrade with sub-agents. This solves a big problem called "context pollution," which happens when an AI conversation gets confused with too many unrelated tasks. Now developers can create specialized agents that handle specific jobs like security checking or debugging. Each agent works independently, so they don't confuse each other.

OpenAI released GPT-5.2-Codex, described as their most powerful AI model for writing code. This model is especially good at planning and understanding complex code changes. It even helped a security expert find important problems in React code. OpenAI is being careful though, only giving access to vetted cybersecurity professionals right now.

On December 20, developers shared their favorite AI models for coding in VS Code, a popular code editor. Different models work best for different jobs. Claude Opus 4.5 leads in overall coding quality, while GPT-5.2 is better at planning and designing how code should work. GPT-5 Codex works great for smaller coding jobs when you need exact, careful code.

The bigger picture shows that AI is now part of everyday coding work. It's inside browsers, email, spreadsheets, and almost everywhere developers actually work. This shift means less jumping between different tools and more focus on building great software. Companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are making sure their tools work together, which helps everyone.