Tutorial 19

Create a Skill

Why this matters

A Skill is a reusable instruction pattern — the way you want an agent to handle a specific kind of work, packaged once and attached to as many agents as need it. If you’ve ever found yourself typing the same instructions into chat over and over (“when summarizing, always include action items by owner…”), that pattern wants to be a Skill.

Think of Skills as the third leg of an agent’s setup: context files give the agent knowledge, tool policies give it reach, and Skills give it specific, reusable behaviors it should always apply. Today, you build one. Tomorrow, your agents handle that work the way you want without you reminding them every time.

Quick start

Skills today are managed through the Admin Agent — there’s no dedicated Skills page in Settings yet (it’s on the roadmap). For now, the Admin Agent is your interface, and that’s actually the smoother path: you describe the pattern in plain language, he turns it into a working Skill.

1. Sign in — open Auxot in your browser and log in.
2. Open chat with the Admin Agent — click Chat in the left menu, make sure the agent picker reads “Admin Agent.”
3. Describe the pattern you want bundled — type something like “I want a Skill that tells any agent to always cite sources when answering research questions, and to flag when a source is older than two years.”
4. Answer the Admin Agent’s questions — what to call the Skill, which tools it needs, which agents to attach it to.
5. Confirm — the Admin Agent creates the Skill and attaches it to the agents you named, in one move.

Done? The Skill is live. Any agent it’s attached to now follows the pattern automatically — test it by asking that agent a question the Skill should shape.

The agent can do that?

Skills are easier to design conversationally than to write from scratch. The Admin Agent’s specialty is exactly that — turn what you want into a reusable Skill, then attach it.

1. Have the Admin Agent design your first Skill from a real example

Open chat with the Admin Agent:

I keep doing this kind of work with my "[agent name]": [describe a recurring task — e.g., "every Monday I ask it to read last week's customer feedback and pull out themes, but I have to remind it every time to organize by sentiment and to only include feedback with at least two mentions"]. Bundle that into a Skill and attach it to the agent. Give the Skill a clear name.

Why it’s non-obvious: You don’t have to know what makes a good Skill — you describe the recurring pattern in plain language, and the Admin Agent turns it into the proper structure (name, instructions, required tools, agent attachment). You get a working Skill from a description of the work, not from learning the Skill schema yourself.

2. Have the Admin Agent package an existing prompt as a Skill

If you have a prompt that already works well in chat, turn it into a Skill so you don’t have to retype it:

I've been pasting this prompt into chat with my "[agent name]" every time I want a contract review: [paste the prompt]. Turn this into a Skill so the agent applies these instructions automatically when I ask for a contract review. Attach it to that agent.

Why it’s non-obvious: Most users keep refining a prompt in chat without realizing they could promote it to a Skill once it works. The Admin Agent does the promotion for you — extracts the reusable pattern, builds the Skill, attaches it. Stops the “where did I save that prompt?” hunt forever.

3. Have the Admin Agent audit which Skills your agents actually need

Inverted-usage move. Once you have a few agents and a few Skills, ask:

Look at my agents and the Skills I've created. Which Skills are attached to the right agents? Are there agents that should have a Skill they don't have? Are there Skills attached to agents that don't actually need them? Be specific about which Skill goes where.

Why it’s non-obvious: Skills accumulate the same way context files and tool policies do. The Admin Agent reviews your fleet and proposes specific moves — “attach the citation-checking Skill to the research agent,” “detach the brand-voice Skill from the technical-support agent.” Cleanup work the system itself doesn’t enforce.

Go deeper

Skills vs context files vs tool policies — what’s the difference?

These three are the levers you have for shaping how an agent works:

• Context files = knowledge the agent has access to. Brand voice docs, FAQs, product specs. They tell the agent what to know.
• Tool policies (with MCP servers) = capabilities the agent can reach for. APIs, integrations, external systems. They tell the agent what to do.
• Skills = reusable instruction patterns. Specific behaviors the agent always applies. They tell the agent how to handle certain kinds of work.

You’d use a context file for “our brand voice is friendly, direct, no jargon.” You’d use a Skill for “when responding to a customer complaint, always: acknowledge → summarize → propose next step.” Different layers, different purposes.

Skill scopes

Like context files, Skills have three scopes:

• User scope — only your agents see this Skill. Use for personal patterns.
• Team scope — all team-scoped agents can use this Skill. Available on Business tier and above.
• Org scope — all org agents can use this Skill. Use for company-wide behaviors (citation rules, compliance patterns).

Org admins create org-scoped Skills. Team admins create team-scoped. Any user can create user-scoped.

The required_tools list

A Skill can declare which tools it needs to function (e.g., “this Skill requires get_calendar_events to work“). If you attach a Skill to an agent that doesn’t have those tools, the Skill won’t function correctly. The Admin Agent checks this when attaching — if a tool is missing, he’ll suggest adding it via the agent’s tool policy.

Skills today: API + Admin Agent only

Skills don’t have a dedicated Settings page yet. The full feature set is available via:

• The Admin Agent — chat-based create / attach / edit / delete (recommended).
• The REST API — POST /api/skills, GET /api/skills/{id}, PUT, DELETE, plus the agent-attachment endpoints under /api/agents/{agentId}/skills.

A dedicated Settings page is on the roadmap. For now, the Admin Agent is the path — and conversational creation is genuinely faster than form-filling for most Skills.

Pre-installed Skills

Auxot ships one builtin Skill: auxot-openui — used internally for rendering OpenUI apps. You don’t manage this one; it’s there to make other features work. Your custom Skills sit alongside it.

Troubleshooting

• The Admin Agent says “Permission denied” when creating a Skill. Skill creation requires admin permissions for org and team scopes. User-scoped Skills work for everyone. If you need an org-scoped Skill and aren’t an admin, ask whoever is.
• The Skill is attached but the agent isn’t applying it. The Skill’s instructions might conflict with the agent’s existing description, or the pattern only triggers in specific conditions that aren’t being met. Test with a clear example case. If still not working, ask the Admin Agent to review.
• The agent’s behavior changed in unexpected ways after I attached a Skill. Skills add to the agent’s behavior — they don’t replace it. If the new behavior is wrong, the Skill’s instructions need refinement. Ask the Admin Agent to update the Skill.

Variations & edge cases

• Attaching one Skill to multiple agents — totally fine. The Skill is defined once and applied everywhere it’s attached.
• Multiple Skills on one agent — supported. Skills have a sort_order that controls which one applies first when multiple match.
• Editing a Skill in place — changes the Skill for every agent it’s attached to. Useful when you want to update a pattern across the fleet at once.
• Disabling vs detaching — is_active = false keeps the Skill in your library but stops it from being applied. Detaching removes it from a specific agent.
• Free tier: Skills work at all tiers. Team-scope and org-scope Skills depend on having the right tier for teams (Business+).

Walkthrough

Skills are built and attached through the Admin Agent — chat-based, no Settings UI today.

Step 1: Open chat with the Admin Agent

Click Chat in the left menu. Make sure the agent picker at the top reads “Admin Agent.”

Step 2: Describe the pattern you want bundled

Talk to the Admin Agent like you’d talk to a colleague who’s helping you write a runbook. The clearer the recurring pattern, the better the Skill:

• “I want a Skill that tells any agent to cite sources when answering research questions, and to flag when a source is older than two years.”
• “Bundle this into a Skill: when summarizing meeting notes, always organize by decisions, action items by owner, and unresolved questions.”
• “Create a Skill for our customer support agent that always: acknowledges the issue, asks the right diagnostic question if unclear, and offers a human handoff for technical complaints.”

Be specific about what the agent should always do — that’s the heart of the Skill.

Step 3: Answer the Admin Agent’s questions

The Admin Agent will work through:

• What to call it — a clear name that anyone scanning your Skills list will understand.
• What scope it should have — User (personal), Team (team-shared), or Org (everyone).
• Which tools it needs — if the Skill’s instructions mention specific tools, the Admin Agent will list them.
• Which agents to attach it to — pick one or more.

Step 4: Confirm and create

The Admin Agent proposes the full Skill — name, scope, instructions, required tools, attached agents. Read it. If it looks right, say “yes, create it” (or anything similar).

The Skill is created and attached in one move. The Admin Agent confirms and tells you which agents now have it.

Step 5: Test the Skill

Open chat with one of the attached agents and ask a question the Skill should shape. If the agent’s response follows the pattern, you’ve wired it right. If not, head back to the Admin Agent:

The "[agent name]" isn't applying the "[Skill name]" Skill correctly when I ask [example question]. What's wrong, and how do we fix the Skill's instructions?

The Admin Agent reads the Skill, the agent, and your example, and prescribes the fix.

Tip: If you find yourself running the same prompt in chat every week, that’s a Skill waiting to happen. Tell the Admin Agent: “Turn this prompt into a Skill and attach it to my [agent name].”

What’s next

• → Tutorial 04: Add your first context file — Skills give patterns; context files give knowledge. Often you want both on the same agent.
• → Tutorial 08: Define a tool policy — if your Skill requires specific tools, the agent needs a tool policy that grants them.
• → Tutorial 18: Add an MCP server — extend what tools are available; combine with Skills to make agents that handle complex work.

Reference

• How Skills are created today: via the Admin Agent (chat) or the REST API. A dedicated Settings page is on the roadmap.
• Built-in Skill: auxot-openui (used internally for rendering apps).
• Skill scopes: User / Team / Org
• Skill structure: name, description, instruction body, required tools, scope, is_active flag
• Agent attachment: per-agent, with sort_order to control priority
• API endpoints: /api/skills and /api/agents/{agentId}/skills
• See also: Tutorial 04: Add your first context file, Tutorial 08: Define a tool policy, Tutorial 18: Add an MCP server