Skills

A skill is a page of instructions for doing one thing properly. Asteria loads it when the job comes up, then works to it.

The problem it solves

There is a way your organisation does certain things. Case studies follow a shape. Meeting notes have required sections. Expense queries need a particular disclaimer. Every one of those lives in somebody's head, and gets re-explained, slightly differently, forever.

A skill is that written down once, in a place Asteria can reach.

Skills versus agents

Covered in full on the agents page, but the short version:

An agent is who you are talking to. It takes over the conversation.

A skill is how one thing is done. It applies inside whatever conversation you are already in, including inside an agent.

The test: read your instruction out loud. A persona ("you are our brand voice checker") is an agent. A procedure ("to format a case study: headline, then the problem in one sentence, then...") is a skill.

Two ways a skill gets used

This is the part worth understanding, because it is the setting that decides whether your skill ever gets used at all.

Asteria picks it up on its own (auto-load)

With Auto-load on, Asteria can reach for the skill whenever it looks relevant. Nobody has to remember it exists.

It decides using the skill's description. That makes the description the most important field on the page: it is not a summary for humans, it is the trigger.

You invoke it with /

Type / in the message box and pick it. The skill arrives as a pill.

With Auto-load off, / is the only way in. That is the right setting for a skill that should apply only when you say so.

Built-in skills

Your organisation starts with skills already in place, covering things Asteria does often: analysing spreadsheets, drawing diagrams, building presentations, authoring workbooks, working with Google Workspace.

You will never need to invoke these. They exist so that when you ask for a chart, the chart is made the right way. They are worth looking at as models when you write your own, because their descriptions are written to be triggers.

Where they live

Skills in the left rail of the Agents area. You get:

• My Skills, yours
• Shared with you, from colleagues
• Built-in, the ones that came with the product
• Browse, anything published to your organisation's marketplace

Each shows whether it is Private or Shared and how many times it has been used. Usage is the honest signal: a skill nobody loads is a description problem, not a content problem.

Using someone else's

Duplicate as mine takes a copy you can edit. From then on the two are independent.

Duplicate rather than asking the owner to change theirs when your team needs a variation. Edit theirs only if the change is an improvement for everybody.

Next

• Writing a good skill, which is mostly about the description.
• Tutorial: your first skill.