Managing Skills

Skills determine what your agents can do and when they activate. This guide covers the practical steps for creating, configuring, and attaching skills to agents. For conceptual background on skill types, see Skills and Automation.

Accessing Skills

Navigate to Settings > Skills in your workspace. The skills index shows all configured skills with their type, status (enabled/disabled), and attached agents.

Admin or owner permissions are required to manage skills.

Creating a Tool Skill

Tool skills define which tools an agent can use when responding to @mentions.

Steps

1. Click New Skill
2. Select type: Tool
3. Enter a name (e.g., "Research Tools", "Task Management")
4. Select the tools this skill grants access to from the available list
5. Click Create
6. Attach the skill to one or more agents

Example: Research-Only Agent

Create a tool skill called "Research Only" with these tools:
- web_search
- fetch_url
- search_news
- read_rss_feed
- lookup_person

Attach it to your Researcher agent. The agent will only be able to use these tools, keeping it focused on research.

Creating a Trigger Skill

Trigger skills fire automatically when workspace events occur. They require the Pro plan.

Steps

1. Click New Skill
2. Select type: Trigger
3. Enter a name (e.g., "Auto-Triage Issues")
4. Select one or more event types to listen for
5. Optionally set conditions to filter events
6. Write instructions telling the agent what to do when triggered
7. Optionally select tools the agent can use
8. Click Create
9. Attach to an agent

Available Event Types

Task events:
- task_created — A new task is created
- task_state_changed — Task moves to a different state
- task_assigned — Task is assigned to someone
- task_priority_changed — Task priority is updated
- task_due_date_changed — Task due date is modified

Document events:
- document_created — A new document is created
- document_edited — A document is modified
- document_published — A document is published
- document_unpublished — A document is unpublished

Data events:
- data_table_created — A new database is created
- data_table_schema_changed — Database columns are modified

Other events:
- message_created — A new message is posted
- webhook_received — An inbound webhook payload arrives

Conditions

Conditions filter which events trigger the skill. Written as key = value pairs, one per line:

state_became = in_progress
priority = high

The trigger only fires when all conditions match.

Instructions

Write natural language instructions for what the agent should do:

When a high-priority task is created, post a notification 
in #engineering and assign it to the on-call engineer. 
Search for related open tasks and link them in the description.

Creating an Automation Skill

Automation skills run on a schedule using cron expressions. They require the Business plan.

Steps

1. Click New Skill
2. Select type: Automation
3. Enter a name (e.g., "Weekly Status Report")
4. Select a schedule preset or enter a custom cron expression
5. Choose which channel the agent posts results to
6. Write instructions for what the agent should do
7. Optionally select tools
8. Click Create
9. Attach to an agent

Schedule Presets

Preset	Cron Expression	Description
Weekdays at 9 AM	0 9 * * 1-5	Monday through Friday
Mondays at 9 AM	0 9 * * 1	Weekly on Monday
Fridays at 5 PM	0 17 * * 5	End of week
Every day at 9 AM	0 9 * * *	Daily
Every 4 hours	0 */4 * * *	Throughout the day
First of month	0 0 1 * *	Monthly

Custom Cron Expressions

┌───── minute (0-59)
│ ┌───── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌───── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week (0-6, Sunday=0)
│ │ │ │ │
30 8 * * 1-5    → 8:30 AM weekdays
0 */2 * * *     → Every 2 hours
0 9 15 * *      → 9 AM on the 15th of each month

Attaching Skills to Agents

Skills only take effect when attached to an agent:

1. Go to the skill's detail page
2. Click Toggle next to any agent to attach or detach
3. Or go to the agent's settings and manage skills from there

An agent can have multiple skills attached. A skill can be attached to multiple agents.

Connector-Created Skills

When you set up a connector (e.g., GitHub, Google Calendar), it automatically creates tool skills granting access to the connector's tools. These auto-created skills appear in your skills list and can be attached to agents like any other skill.

For example, setting up a GitHub connector creates skills for:
- github_list_issues
- github_get_issue
- github_create_issue
- github_list_prs

Enabling and Disabling

Toggle a skill's enabled status to temporarily deactivate it without deleting configuration. Disabled skills don't fire triggers or run automations.

Tips

• Start with tool skills — Restrict agents to relevant tools before setting up automations
• Test triggers in a test channel — Use conditions to limit scope while testing
• Monitor automation output — Check the designated channel after first runs to verify results
• Combine skill types — A single agent can have tool skills for manual requests, trigger skills for events, and automation skills for scheduled work