Skills: Teach the AI new capabilities

Skills are reusable capabilities you teach the AI: a workflow you describe once that is then automatically available in every chat. Examples: an invoice parser for your PDF format, a report in your house style, a connection to your CRM.

You’ll find skills in the Skills area in the sidebar. They are available with a Business license.

Creating a skill: right in the chat

Skills are built in conversation, no file uploads required:

1. Open the Skills area in the sidebar
2. Click “Create skill”
3. A guided chat opens: describe what the skill should do
4. The AI asks targeted follow-up questions (What is the goal? What does a good result look like?) and then creates the skill for you

The skill is immediately usable: in the current chat, in all future chats and for your agents. You can tell the AI is using a skill from the tool indicator in the chat.

Tip: If you have worked out a recurring workflow in a normal chat, the AI often offers on its own to turn it into a skill. You can also simply say: “Turn this into a reusable skill.”

Connected skills: connecting external services

A connected skill calls an external API, for example your CRM, a booking system or a tracking service. There are two ways to build one:

Guided: Click “Connected skill” in the skills area. The AI researches the API documentation with you, requests your credentials through a secure form and tests the connection until access works.

Directly in the chat: You can also upload or link an API documentation in any normal chat and ask: “Can you access this API?” The AI sets up the connection as needed and tries the access. As soon as a call works, it creates a skill for you that records how to use the API, so later chats do not have to work it out again. If you share the connection with colleagues, share the skill with the same people, otherwise they have the access but not the instructions for it.

Important, regarding credentials: You never type API keys or passwords into the chat text. The AI opens a dedicated input field whose content is stored encrypted right away. What you store there becomes an account on an integration of its own for this interface. It belongs to you, is listed under Settings → Integrations and can be shared there like any other.

Editing a skill

Click a skill in the skills area to open the editor:

• General: Name, short description, description, the “Skill active” switch, the sharing settings and the danger zone for deleting. A deactivated skill is no longer available in chat to anyone, including the people you shared it with, which is why the switch is operated only by the owner, by people with the “Administer skill” role and by workspace administrators. The short description is the sentence shown next to the skill in the overview and in the sidebar. 9brains writes it automatically from the description, but you can write it yourself; it then stays, even when the description changes. The description itself is addressed to the AI: it decides when the skill is used
• Definition: The instructions the AI works from. You can edit them directly or discuss changes in the chat (“Change something about my skill …”)
• Files: All files of the skill (instructions, scripts, templates) with version history. Markdown files can be edited as plain text or formatted via “Text” and “Formatted”; the header of SKILL.md with name and description stays unchanged
• Connections (connected skills only): Shows which external services the skill uses and whether your credentials for them are in place

Every change creates a new version; earlier states can be restored.

Sharing skills

In the General tab you define who may use the skill. Sharing is a list with one row per person or group, and a role dropdown on the right of each row. If nobody is in the list, only you have access.

Use “Add a group or person …” to open the picker. It shows all existing groups and people right away, grouped by kind, so you pick instead of guessing a name. Typing filters the list when you are after someone specific. Entries that already have access stay visible, greyed out and marked “Already granted”. With a lot of entries the list shows only the first ones per section and tells you to narrow down the search.

If everyone in the workspace should have access, pick the entry for all members from the list (it appears as “Alle Mitglieder”). This is the system group that covers every member of your workspace.

Each row gets exactly one of three roles:

Role	What it allows
Use skill	Can call and run the skill in chat, but cannot change anything about it.
Edit skill	Can additionally change the skill’s instructions and files.
Administer skill	Can additionally change the sharing, transfer ownership and delete the skill.

Existing shares keep working exactly as before, there is nothing to redo. Deleting, however, is no longer part of editing; it belongs to Administer skill.

Unlike an agent, a skill has no accounts of its own. It only describes the workflow; the credentials always come from whoever is using it at that moment, from a shared account or from a company account. Sharing a skill therefore never hands an account along with it.

Workspace administrators do not automatically get editing rights on someone else’s skill. They can add themselves to the list as an editor, and that entry is then visible to everyone in the list. Administration, on the other hand, stays fully with them, including on skills they do not own: change the sharing, transfer ownership and delete.

In the skill list, administrators too only see what belongs to them or has been shared with them. A colleague’s personal skill does not show up there unless they share it: being an administrator is not a window into other people’s work. When somebody leaves the workspace, their skills are offered for hand-over while you remove the person.

For connected skills there is one more rule: only the skill is shared, never your credentials. When a colleague uses the skill for the first time, the AI asks for their own credentials. That way everyone only sees the data they have access to themselves.

If you want a common team access instead, you additionally share your account: the selected groups and people then work with your account and are no longer asked for credentials of their own. If the access should belong to the company and stay when you leave, a company account is the better way.

Who owns a skill

Above the sharing options you see the skill’s owner, with name and email address. You also see it when you are only allowed to use the skill, so you know whom to ask about questions or change requests. A skill keeps its owner permanently, including after you share it with the entire workspace.

The owner, everyone with the “Administer skill” role and workspace administrators can hand the skill over to someone else via “Change owner”. The dialog lists the people in your workspace right away: pick the person and responsibility moves with it. Whoever hands the skill over only has access afterwards if they are on the sharing list, with the role entered there. That also applies if you created the skill yourself.

Hiding a skill someone shared with you

If someone shares a skill you do not need, you can hide it for yourself. You find the command in the skill list in the Skills area, in the “Shared with me” section: open the three-dot menu in the skill’s row and pick “Hide for me”. Your own skills have no such menu; you can only hide what somebody else shared with you.

What happens then:

• The skill disappears from your lists and is no longer offered to the assistant in the chat
• Nothing changes for the owner or for anyone else, and the owner is not notified
• The skill stays hidden even if it is shared with you again later
• A “Hidden” section appears at the very bottom of that same page, and you can bring the skill back from there at any time
• If the owner later withdraws your access altogether, the skill drops out of “Hidden” as well: it lists only what you would be allowed to bring back

So hiding only tidies up your own view, it is not a change to the sharing. If you want the access gone entirely, talk to the owner.

Importing existing skills

If you already have finished skills as files (for example from another environment), you can upload them in the skills area via “Import”:

• A single Markdown file (.md): its name does not matter, it becomes the skill’s instructions. If the name and description are missing at the top of the file, 9brains uses the first heading as the name (otherwise the file name) and the first paragraph as the description. You can change both in the skill afterwards. Check the description in particular: it decides when the AI uses the skill.
• A ZIP or TGZ archive if the skill comes with further files. The folder must contain a SKILL.md file.

For new skills, the chat route is the easier one.

To pass a skill on, including to someone in another organisation, open it and click “Download skill” at the top right. You get a ZIP archive with all of the skill’s files, which the other person imports as described above.

Frequently asked questions

When does the AI use a skill? Automatically, as soon as your request matches the skill’s description. You don’t have to invoke it. If a skill doesn’t trigger, make its description more precise or ask the AI in the skill editor chat to sharpen it.

Can I bind a skill to an agent permanently? Yes, your workspace’s own skills, in the agent’s settings in the Instructions tab under “Always-loaded skills”. The agent then loads the skill in full on every run instead of reading it only when needed. This pays off for procedures an agent should carry out the same way every time, such as a weekly report. More under Agents.

What happens if credentials for a connected skill are missing or invalid? The AI notices this on access and asks you in the chat for new credentials via the secure input field. Alternatively you can replace them at any time under Settings → Integrations.

Can I delete a skill? Yes, in the General tab in the danger zone, but not everyone can: deleting requires the “Administer skill” role. The owner and workspace administrators may do it as well. Anyone who is only allowed to edit the skill cannot delete it. Deletion is permanent and also removes the owner’s accounts that only this skill used. Colleagues’ accounts and company accounts stay.