Skill
A learnable procedure: instructions plus the tools and content it unlocks.
A skill is a learnable procedure: instructions, plus the tools and content those instructions rely on.
Most of what an agent needs is not in a tool. It is the sequence, the vocabulary, the rule that a refund past sixty days needs a manager. A skill is where that knowledge stops living in someone's prompt and starts living in your workspace.
How it relates
A skill belongs to one or more roles, and an agent gets it by learning a role. Skills are listed on the Skills page of Capabilities, whatever role uses them.
A skill's tools come from the MCP servers installed in your workspace. A skill selects the ones it needs.
Skills follow the Agent Skills standard. A skill written elsewhere imports as a SKILL.md package, and a skill written here exports to the same format.
What it contains
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name and Description | What the agent reads when it decides whether the skill applies. |
| Instructions | The procedure itself, given to the agent when the skill is learned. |
| Tools | The operations the skill unlocks. |
| Skill content | The references, scripts and assets attached to the skill. |
Skill content comes in three kinds, and the file extension decides which:
- References are Markdown. The agent reads them on demand, so a long process document costs nothing until it is needed.
- Scripts are Python, Bash, JavaScript or TypeScript. The agent runs them, and they execute in a runtime (a sandboxed process Skilder manages) rather than in the conversation.
- Assets are any other file, up to 10 MB each. The agent fetches one when it needs the bytes, a template to fill in or a PDF to read.
Like a role, a skill is Draft or Published, and agents work from the published version.
What it is not
A skill is not a wrapper around one tool. A skill with no tool at all is still useful, because the instructions and the references are the point.
Next
- Build a skill, for the full authoring flow.
- Getting started, to build one end to end.