When the Skin modifier is first applied to a mesh, the bone structure's current pose is used as the skin pose. Subsequent animation of the bone structure on frame 0 can cause the skin pose to be altered. The skin pose commands allow you to change and set the skin pose either before or after you apply the Skin modifier.
The skin pose stores a specific position, rotation and scale for an object. Its intended use is for storing a character assembly's pose for the Skin modifier. However, a skin pose can be used for any object to store its current transforms for later retrieval.
These commands work on any object, regardless of whether the structure is part of a character assembly, or whether the bones have been assigned to a mesh with the Skin modifier.
Causes the selected objects to take on the stored skin pose. This feature can be useful during the animation phase. For example, if you have animated the character on various keyframes and want the character to animate back to its skin pose at frame 50, you can turn on Auto Key at frame 50 and click Assume Skin Pose.