A skill is a saved recipe for something you do over and over
Underneath, it’s one long set of instructions. How you want the job done, in what order, what good looks like, what to avoid. The kind of thing you’d explain to somebody the first week and then never want to explain again.
Think of a long recipe. It isn’t only the steps, it’s the watch-outs and the bits where it depends: if this happens do that instead, if it’s for eight rather than four change this. Nobody holds all of that in their head, and nobody gets the same result twice trying to. That’s why it’s written down.
NameWhat you'd call it out loud. "Monthly client report."DescriptionOne line on when it should be used.The stepsHow you actually do the job, in order, including the bits you'd forget.ExamplesA few real ones you were happy with, so it knows what good looks like.
If you do it regularly and the method is broadly the same, make it a skill
The test is whether it comes up regularly and whether a consistent method would help. Something you do a couple of times a month and expect to keep doing is worth saving, however small it is.
It doesn’t need to be identical every time either. Different clients, different months, different numbers, all fine, as long as the process is roughly the same shape.
There’s a second question worth settling, if you’ve already got a second brain, because both are you writing down how you work. The folder is context: your clients, your team, how you price, how you like things done. It is context you can give the AI when it needs it. A skill is one job, and it only comes out when that job does. If it’s true no matter what you’re working on, it belongs in the folder. If it’s the way you do one particular thing, it’s a skill.
You make one by doing the job once, then asking for it to be saved
Start by showing it how you do the job, rather than trying to write the instructions from scratch.
- 01Do the job in a normal chatWork through it properly, correcting as you go, until you're happy with what comes back.
- 02Ask for it to be saved as a skillGive it a name you'll recognise later. "Can you make what we've just done into a skill, and call it monthly client report."
- 03Test it on something oldType / with no space, then start typing the skill's name. Pick it from the list and run it on a job you did last month. Compare the two.
- 04Fix the skill, not the answerWhen you catch yourself making the same correction every time you run it, go and change the instructions instead.
Save it when you’re happy with it. Once it’s saved, you can ask for it to be updated from any chat: tell it what was wrong and what to change.
If you’d rather not do the job first, ask it to interview you instead. How you normally handle this, what it should check, what a good one looks like. Answer the questions and it writes the skill from your answers.
If the work is high stakes, go further: gather ten real examples, build the skill against eight of them, and keep two back to test it on.
It can pick the right skill up for you
Once a skill is saved, the AI will normally work out when it is a good match for what you’re asking and use it without you having to remember to call it up.
That is useful for routine work. If the job matters, type / and choose the skill yourself, so you know the right process is being used.
Share your skill so colleagues can run it too
The useful thing about a shared skill is that colleagues can run the same process you have worked out. A monthly client report, say, gets put together the same way whoever runs it. Whether you can share it with one person, a group or the whole team depends on the tool, your plan and your organisation’s settings.
Workspace admins may have visibility over shared skills and how they are used, depending on the product and workspace settings.
If your skill runs on a regular cadence, make it a scheduled task
A skill is for something you do regularly but can’t predict when. Some jobs aren’t like that. They happen every Monday, and it’s the date that sets them off rather than you deciding to sit down and do them.
Those ones should be run as a scheduled task instead. It runs at a time you set, on the days you choose, without you asking for it to start.
The order matters. Build the skill first and get the method right, then put it on a timer. You keep the version you can run by hand either way.