Most developers let their AI assistant guess how to write Node.js. No context, no constraints, no history, just vibes and generic output. The result is code that ignores the event loop, skips proper error handling, and looks nothing like how senior engineers actually build. The question is: can you actually teach your AI to code like you?

In this episode of The Node (and more) Banter, Luca Maraschi and Matteo Collina dive into the emerging AI toolchain for Node.js development, from Agent Skills to coding agents like OpenClaw and Pi. Matteo shares his own personal skills repository (mcollina/skills), a collection of battle-tested Node.js, Fastify, and TypeScript best practices that any AI coding assistant can load and apply out of the box.

In this episode, we cover:

✅ What Agent Skills are and why the open standard changes how AI-assisted development works

✅ Why Matteo got frustrated with AI slop and built his own skills repo — and what's inside it

✅ How to install and use mcollina/skills with Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI Codex, and more

✅ What OpenClaw and Pi are, and how they fit into the Node.js AI toolchain

✅ The practical question: what should a JavaScript developer actually install today to code with AI effectively?

✅ The difference between prompting from scratch every time vs. encoding your expertise once and reusing it everywhere

The takeaway? AI-assisted development isn't just about which model you use, it's about the context you give it. Skills are how you stop training your AI from zero on every project and start shipping faster, with fewer corrections. If you're building with Node.js and you're not using skills yet, this episode will change how you set up your workflow.