Skills
Manage reusable instruction bundles that extend agent capabilities without modifying each agent's core instructions.
Overview
Skills are named instruction sets stored in Cosmos DB. When an agent executes, the skill manifest service merges the tenant's active skills into the agent's prompt, giving every agent access to shared capabilities like email formatting patterns, escalation logic, or compliance workflows.
Skills have a lifecycle status that controls whether they appear in the LLM's prompt:
| Status | Prompt Visible | Editable |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Yes | Yes |
| Experimental | No | Yes |
| Draft | No | Yes |
| Pending Approval | No | Read-only |
| Deprecated | No | Yes (can reactivate) |
| Disabled | No | Yes |
Navigating to Skills
Open the Build Hub from the left sidebar, then select Skills under the AI Agents section.
Skills List
The Skills List shows all tenant skills in a table with the following columns:
- Name - Unique kebab-case identifier (e.g.
email-tone-guide) - Scope -
Tenant(all agents) orAgent(specific agent) - Status - Color-coded badge (see table above)
- Activation Mode - How the skill is injected: Auto, On-Demand, or Hybrid
- Updated - Last modification date
- Proposed By - Agent that proposed the skill (if auto-generated)
Filtering
Use the Scope and Status dropdowns in the toolbar to narrow the list.
Actions
- Click any row to open the Skill Editor for that skill.
- Use New Skill to create a skill manually.
- Use View Proposed (with badge count) to review agent-proposed skills awaiting approval.
Deprecating a Skill
Deprecation removes a skill from the LLM's prompt without deleting the record, preserving audit history.
- From the Skills List, locate the skill you want to deprecate.
- Click Mark Deprecated in the row actions. A confirmation dialog appears.
- Confirm the action.
The skill's status changes to Deprecated (amber badge) and it is immediately excluded from prompt injection and from tool_capability_search results.
A deprecated row shows a Reactivate button in place of the deprecation action.
Reactivating a Deprecated Skill
- Locate the deprecated skill (filter by Status = Deprecated).
- Click Reactivate. A confirmation dialog appears.
- Confirm the action.
The skill's status returns to Active and prompt injection resumes on the next agent execution.
Creating and Editing Skills
Click New Skill or an existing skill row to open the Skill Editor.
Basic Info
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Kebab-case identifier, unique within the tenant |
| Display Name | Human-readable label shown in the console |
| One-liner | Short description (max 80 characters) |
Instructions
Enter the markdown-formatted instructions the skill injects into the agent prompt. Keep instructions focused on a single capability to simplify future deprecation.
Tool References
Comma-separated list of tool names the skill's instructions reference. Used for dependency tracking.
Activation
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Mode | Auto (always injected), On-Demand (injected when triggered), Hybrid |
| Triggers | Patterns that activate the skill (auto/hybrid modes) |
| Profiles | Context profiles that enable this skill |
| Context Match | Free-text context matching rule |
| Context Tags | Tags used to match conversation context |
Status in Edit Mode
In the Skill Editor, the Status dropdown allows the following transitions for existing skills:
- Draft, Active, Experimental, Deprecated, Disabled
Pending Approval is shown read-only when the skill is awaiting human review; no other transition is available until the skill is approved or rejected.
Proposed Skills
Agent-proposed skills appear on the Proposed Skills page (/build/skills/proposed). Each card shows the skill name, description, proposing agent, and a preview of the instructions.
- Approve - Creates the skill as Active.
- Reject - Removes the proposal; a rejection reason is required.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my skill not appearing in agent responses?
Check the skill's status. Only Active skills are included in the prompt. If the status is correct, verify the skill's Activation Mode and that its triggers match the current context.
Can I recover a deleted skill? Hard deletion is permanent. Use Deprecated status instead of deletion when you want to preserve the skill for audit purposes.
What happens to the prompt cost when I deprecate a skill?
Deprecated skills are excluded from buildPromptSection, so their token cost is eliminated immediately on the next agent execution.
How do I find skills that have not been used recently?
The platform runs an automated activation-decay check nightly. Skills with no [SKILL_AUTO_ACTIVATED] events in the last 60 days and status: active are flagged in the build pipeline. Review flagged skills and deprecate them if they are no longer needed.