Turn repeat work into skills

A skill is a set of written instructions for one kind of job, such as “How we write board decks” or “How we clean sales data”. Attach it to a task or an agent, and the work follows your team’s way of doing it.

Write a skill when you find yourself typing the same instructions for the third time. Skills work well for a format, a process or a house style. Do the job by hand in a task first, then write down what worked.

Write a skill, tag it, share it, edit it and read its history (1:25).

Create a skill

1. Pick how to start:
   • Write it yourself. Go to Skills on the rail and click New Skill, or in the composer click Attach skills (the scroll) > Add skill > Create with skill editor.
   • Let an agent draft it. In an empty composer, click Attach skills > Add skill > Create skill with Context. The agent asks what the skill should do, then writes it with you. Clear the composer first: it won’t replace a draft you’ve started.
2. Give it a clear name. Then write, in this order:
   • What it’s for: one sentence, so an agent knows when to use it.
   • The steps, numbered, in the order they happen.
   • The rules: what must always or never happen.
   • An example of good output, if you have one.
3. Try it on a real task. In the composer, click Attach skills and add it. Compare the result with what you expected.
4. Edit the skill where the result went wrong, and try again.

Write rules the agent can check. “Under 400 words” works. “Concise” doesn’t.

Keep each skill to one job. “Board decks” and “Sales data cleaning” are two skills. If one large skill covers everything, the agent can’t tell which part applies.

Write one in the skill editor

The video builds an “Account brief” skill this way.

1. Go to Skills on the rail. The library lists your organization’s skills, with the tabs All, Your skills and Shared with you. Click New Skill. The editor opens beside the list. (If your organization has renamed skills, the button uses its own name.)
2. Fill in Skill name, for example “Account brief”.
3. Under Add a description…, say when to use it, for example “Use this when you prepare a brief on a client company before a meeting.” Agents see only a skill’s name and description until they open it, so the description is how they know when to reach for it.
4. Click Add tag to add a tag, such as account-briefs, so the skill is easy to find later. Pick an existing tag, or choose Create new tag. Tags use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens: “My Tag” becomes my-tag. A tag can be up to 50 characters, and a skill can have up to 20 tags.
5. In the body, write the steps in plain language, for example:

   1. Say what the client does and who it serves, in two sentences.
   2. Summarize the client’s last quarter in three bullets.
   3. List three open questions for our next call.
   4. Close with a one-line recommendation.

6. Click Save. The top bar shows “Saved”.

A new skill stays private until you share it: only you, and your agents working in your tasks, can use it. After the first save, the editor shows Share, the tabs Editor, Activity and Evaluations (where evaluations are available to you), and a footer to add files and connectors. The steps are saved as the skill’s SKILL.md.

An example

Juniper board deck Use this skill for any deck going to the board.

1. Start from @Juniper deck template.
2. Slide 2 states the answer in one sentence.
3. One idea per slide. Put the idea in the title as a full sentence.
4. No more than four bullets per slide, and one chart or number.
5. End with a slide titled “What we need from you”. Never use clip art. Never use more than two colours on a chart.

Share and assign it

Open the skill and click Share. If the skill describes how your team works, share it with the workspace:

1. Under General access, change Restricted (“Only people with access can open”) to your workspace, such as Northwind Advisory, so everyone in the workspace can use it as a Viewer. You can also pick your whole organization.

2. To add named people, type in Add people, agents, or user groups, for example Priya Raman, and pick a role:

   Role	What they can do
   Viewer	“Can view and use this skill in their agents.”
   Editor	“Can use this skill and edit its content.”
   Admin	“Can edit, manage who has access, and delete this skill.”

   The person’s personal agents get the same access, unless you uncheck them under Invite personal agents.

3. Click Share, then Done.

You are the skill’s Owner. Only people who can manage access (the Owner and Admins) can change General access. On organizations that use the newer permissions system, the dialog words these choices differently: the roles are Viewer and Editor, General access reads “Everyone in [workspace] can view” or “can edit”, and there is no Invite personal agents option.

Add the skill under Skills on the Setup tab of each agent that should always use it, so nobody has to remember to attach it.

Edit it and read its history

Every save that changes something creates a new version; there is no separate publish step. After you add a step and save again, the top bar shows v2.

Click the version number to open History (“Pick a version to see what changed in it.”). If the editor is narrow and the number is hidden, open the skill actions menu next to the name and choose History. History lists every version and who saved it, for example “Saved by Maya Lin”. Pick a version to see what changed: the exact lines added and removed, compared with the previous version or any earlier one you choose.

Find skills by tag

On Skills, click the filter button and pick a tag under Tag, such as account-briefs. The list narrows to the skills with that tag. With several tags picked, you can match any or all of them. To keep a filter handy, pin it under Filters in the left panel. The Search skills box also matches tags.

Anyone who can see the skills can filter them this way.

Improve it over time

When suggestions are waiting, the skill editor shows a count of improvements in its top bar. Click it, then click Review on one to accept or reject each change. You can also type /improve in a task to start an improvement loop. Before a big edit, check History (the version number in the top bar, or the skill actions menu) so you can see what the skill said before.