---
title: "Tell Me a Joke · example of Baseline Skill · Agentic Atlas"
description: "Tell Me a Joke is a real skill with a one-line body, the cleanest baseline to compare skills against."
canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke"
last-updated: "2026-09-23"
---

1. [Agentic Atlas](https://agentic-atlas.dev/)
2. [Patterns in the Agentic Atlas](https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas)
3. [Foundations](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/foundations)
4. [Baseline Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)
5. Tell Me a Joke
1. example of [Baseline Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)
   # Tell Me a Joke
   **What does a minimal runnable agent skill look like?**
   Tell Me a Joke is a real skill with a one-line body, the cleanest baseline to compare skills against.
   Hook
   a real runnable skill (the artifact *is* the example)
   Laws & fences
   - The body is one line because, for a joke, there is nothing the model would not otherwise do.
   - The joke skill is a baseline for comparison, not a pattern worth shipping for real.
   When to reach
   - Reach for this as the shape to start from when writing any real skill.
   Provenance
   [tell-me-a-joke/artifact](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke#artifact) · v1.0.11
   Addresses
   atlas_cards tell-me-a-joke
2. [Baseline Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)

The card, in place · its connections drawn edges from atlas_links tell-me-a-joke

On this plate

[artifact](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke#artifact) [relationships](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke#relationships)

Every section is addressable on its own. Read only the ground you need.

## Artifact

[Permalink to Artifact section](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke#artifact)

Tell the user a short, clean joke.

The relationships ledger

Evidence-bearing references

## Relationships

Every connection keeps the section where it was found. The map above orients; this ledger carries the evidence.

### Outbound references 0

1. No outbound references.

### Inbound references 2

1. in-slice · occurrence 1
   [Baseline Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill#evidence)
   a real runnable skill (the artifact *is* the example)
   Evidence: [Evidence](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill#evidence) · occurrence 1
2. in-slice · occurrence 2
   [Baseline Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill#evidence)
   a real runnable skill (the artifact *is* the example)
   Evidence: [Evidence](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill#evidence) · occurrence 2

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Node tell-me-a-joke · corpus 78c0e17 · Catalog revision e0cb75881244b1a82193ca738b82a0d508dd62e822524ae82873ec79d51dbb61