Skill System
- Entity ID:
ent-20260409-bd96ad1d4b2a - Type:
service - Scope:
shared - Status:
active - Aliases: skills, SkillTool
Description
The Skill System provides reusable, composable workflows defined as markdown documents in src/skills/ and executed through the SkillTool. Skills are invoked via slash commands (e.g., /commit, /review-pr, /simplify) and inject structured instructions into the agent's context that guide multi-step task execution. Users can also define custom skills in their project or user configuration.
How Skills Work
A skill is a markdown file containing instructions, constraints, and optional tool-use patterns. When a user triggers a skill (either by typing a slash command or when the agent identifies a matching skill via the Skill tool), the system:
- Matches the user's request against available skill definitions using keyword and intent matching.
- Loads the matched skill's markdown content into the conversation as a
<command-name>tagged instruction block. - Executes the instructions within the current agent context, inheriting the session's permission-pipeline and memory-hierarchy.
The SkillTool is the tool-use interface that the model calls to invoke skills programmatically. It accepts a skill name and optional arguments, then injects the skill's instructions into the active conversation turn.
Built-in Skills
| Skill | Slash Command | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Commit | /commit |
Stage changes, generate commit message, create git commit |
| Review PR | /review-pr |
Analyze pull request changes, provide structured feedback |
| Simplify | /simplify |
Review changed code for reuse, quality, and efficiency |
| Loop | /loop |
Run a prompt or slash command on a recurring interval |
| Schedule | /schedule |
Create or manage scheduled remote agent triggers |
| Claude API | /claude-api |
Help build apps using the Anthropic SDK |
| Update Config | /update-config |
Configure settings.json for hooks and automated behaviors |
Custom Skills
Users can define custom skills by placing markdown files in .claude/skills/ at the project level or ~/.claude/skills/ at the user level. A custom skill file follows the same format as built-in skills: a markdown document with a frontmatter block specifying the skill name, trigger patterns, and description. Custom skills appear alongside built-in skills in the slash command menu and can be invoked identically.
Integration
Skills frequently compose with other systems: the /commit skill uses the hooks-system to run pre-commit hooks, the /review-pr skill leverages grep-over-rag for codebase search, and scheduled skills run through the forked-agent-pattern for background execution. The bridge-system forwards skill invocations to IDE extensions, and the plugin-system can register additional skills.
Key claims
- none yet
Relations
rel-20260409-1fd4818e: ent-20260409-1c992050d796 --[uses]--> ent-20260409-bd96ad1d4b2a
Sources
src-20260409-e7da1a492842