extension

Skills

Skills are reusable capability packages that help your Agent and Subagents perform custom, repeatable workflows.

Think of a Skill as a packaged behavior: it includes instructions, related files, and operational logic that can be attached where needed across your workspace.

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What are Skills

Built-in tools cover common workflows, but teams often need specialized logic specific to their business. Skills are designed for those cases.

Use Skills when you need:

• reusable custom behavior across multiple agents,
• standardized domain-specific workflows,
• complex capability separated from prompt text,
• reduced repeated manual configuration.

Definition vs attachment

Concept	What it means
Skill Definition	The Skill itself — its name, instructions, and files. One definition can be reused everywhere.
Skill Attachment	A link that makes a Skill available to a specific Agent or Subagent.

Editing a Skill definition updates behavior everywhere it is attached. Detaching only removes it from that one target.

Skill package structure

Upload a .zip archive containing a SKILL.md file with valid YAML frontmatter.

The SKILL.md frontmatter must include:

---
name: My Skill Name
description: What this skill does and when to use it.
---

The rest of the SKILL.md contains the skill instructions. You can also include additional files alongside it:

• reference documents (policies, guides, specs),
• FAQ files,
• templates,
• helper scripts or configuration data.

If the YAML frontmatter is missing or malformed, upload is rejected.

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How to create Skills

Via Composer (AI-assisted)

You can create and attach Skills conversationally through the Composer panel.

Typical requests:

• "Create a new skill for policy summarization and attach it to Support subagent."
• "Attach the invoice-processor skill to this agent."
• "Attach claims-review only to the Billing subagent."

When using Composer, be explicit about scope:

• say agent-level if the Skill should be shared broadly,
• specify the Subagent name if it should be limited to one workflow.

If the requested Skill does not exist in your workspace library yet, upload/create it first, then ask Composer to attach it.

Verify Composer-applied changes

After asking Composer to add a Skill, confirm:

1. The Skill appears in the target Agent/Subagent Skills section
2. It is attached at the intended scope (Agent vs Subagent)
3. Draft behavior works in Preview
4. Deployed behavior works after release

Manual creation

1. Navigate to Sidebar → Skills
2. Click Upload ZIP
3. Upload your ZIP package
4. Validate that the name and description are parsed correctly
5. Open the Skill editor to review/edit contents

Editing behavior

The Skill editor supports:

• file tree navigation,
• inline text editing,
• binary file upload,
• preview for supported document types.

Important:

• Some critical Skill files are protected from accidental deletion.
• Staged changes follow explicit save semantics.
• Editing a shared Skill affects all targets where it is attached.

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Where Skills appear

Workspace Skills Library

Sidebar → Skills

This is your organization-wide catalog. From here, authorized users can:

• upload new Skills,
• browse and open existing Skills,
• rename or download Skills,
• remove Skills.

Agent-level Skills view

Inside an Agent, Skills can be viewed and managed in that Agent context. This helps teams understand which reusable capabilities are active for a specific Agent.

Composer panel

In Composer (Manual mode), Skills can be attached at two scopes:

• Agent-level: available at the root level
• Subagent-level: available only to that Subagent

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Attaching Skills to an Agent

Choosing scope

Attach at Agent level when...	Attach at Subagent level when...
The capability is broadly useful across the Agent	The capability is domain-specific
Multiple Subagents should use the same logic	Only one Subagent should access it
You want centralized behavior without repetition	You need stricter operational boundaries

Attaching via Composer (Manual mode)

1. Open Composer → Configuration
2. Select your target (Agent or specific Subagent)
3. Navigate to the Skills section
4. Attach the desired Skill
5. Save and deploy

Attaching via Composer (AI-assisted)

Ask Composer directly:

"Attach the invoice-processor skill to the Billing subagent."

Detach vs delete

Action	Effect
Detach	Removes only the assignment link from a target. Source Skill and other attachments remain intact.
Delete	Removes the Skill definition entirely. All attachments are cascaded and removed.

Lifecycle behavior

• In draft/testing, attachment resolution follows draft context.
• In live runtime, attachment resolution follows deployed context.
• During version transitions, attachment mappings are preserved and remapped automatically.

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Privileges

Skills access is controlled by role privileges.

Privilege	What it controls
View Skills	When enabled, all workspace members can browse and view Skills in the library.
Edit Skills	Upload, create, edit, rename, and attach/detach Skills — both manually and via Composer. When disabled, creation and editing are blocked entirely.
Delete Skills	Remove Skills from the library. When disabled, deletion is not possible.

Important:

• Attached Skills are always usable at runtime, regardless of a user's permission level. Permissions only control who can manage Skills, not whether agents can execute them.
• Without Edit permission, a user cannot create or modify Skills through either the manual editor or the Composer (AI-assisted) flow.
• Skills can be enabled/disabled at application configuration level. If disabled, Skills surfaces are hidden from navigation.

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Use case walkthrough

Scenario: Meeting Policy Q&A Skill

Your support team frequently answers questions about internal meeting policies. Instead of embedding all this logic in every Subagent prompt, you create a reusable Skill.

Step 1 — Create the Skill

1. Prepare a ZIP package containing:
   • SKILL.md — instructions for answering meeting policy questions
   • policies.md — company meeting guidelines reference
2. Go to Sidebar → Skills → Upload Skill
3. Upload the ZIP and verify metadata

Step 2 — Attach to the right Subagent

1. Open Composer → Configuration
2. Select the Support Subagent from the dropdown
3. Attach the meeting-policy-qa Skill
4. Save

Step 3 — Test

1. In the Preview panel, ask: "What's the policy for recurring meetings?"
2. Verify the agent uses the Skill's instructions and reference content
3. Confirm the response is grounded in the policy document

Step 4 — Deploy and monitor

1. Deploy the new version
2. Monitor Threads and Feedback for quality
3. Iterate on the Skill content if gaps appear

When to use Skills vs Tools

Use Tools when...	Use Skills when...
Built-in actions cover your use case	You need custom scripted behavior
You need external API calls	You need reusable domain logic
Standard operations are sufficient	You need richer packaged instructions and assets

In many production setups, Tools and Skills complement each other: Tools for standard operations, Skills for custom business intelligence and orchestration.