Skills a Mind can load

A skill is a playbook that tells a Mind how to carry out a task the same way every time: the steps, the tools to use and what the result looks like. A Mind loads a skill when a chat needs it, and anyone can also start a chat with a skill from the / menu. Use the Mind's Skills tab to write skills, bring them in from a file, share them with other Minds, test them and follow their history.

Where skills come from

Analytical Minds, Warehouse Builder Minds and Lake Builder Minds can use all three kinds. Model AI, the AI panel in Slides, the AI that writes custom visuals, the connector agent in Connect Anything and the AI assistant for API recipes use built-in and organization skills only.

DataMind Oda gets the organization skills your administrators give to Oda, beside its own skills. See Memory, skills and connectors.

How a Mind uses a skill

• In every chat, the assistant sees a list of the skills it can use, with each skill's name, title, version, kind and description. The list holds up to 50 skills and shows the first 500 characters of each description.
• The list is only a summary. When your request matches a skill, the assistant loads the full skill before it starts that work, and follows it.
• A loaded skill stays with the chat. If the skill changes later, the assistant follows the newest version.
• If someone turns a skill off or deletes it, the assistant stops following it, also in chats that already loaded it. Turn the skill on again and the assistant can load it again.

How a loaded skill shows in the chat is described in Knowledge search and skills in chat.

What a skill can and cannot do

When instructions disagree, the assistant follows them in this order:

1. DataMind's own rules for the assistant.
2. Built-in skills.
3. Organization skills.
4. The Mind's own skills and the skills shared with it, together with its training cards.
5. Your messages.
6. Everything the assistant reads while it works, such as query results, table and column comments, files and web pages.

• A skill never changes the acceptance mode, approves a change for you or grants a permission. If a skill tells the assistant to skip an approval, switch the mode, ignore its rules or send data out, the assistant does not do it and tells you which skill asked.
• Only a skill the assistant loads counts as a skill. Text that looks like a skill anywhere else, such as in a message, a file, a training card or a table comment, is treated as data.
• A skill you paste into a chat is material to save, not instructions. The Mind can show it back to you and save it, and follows it only after it is saved and loaded.

Open the Skills tab

1. Open Minds in the left panel and pick a Mind.
2. Click Skills in the Mind's tabs, between Training Hub and Benchmarks. You need View Mind Skills.
3. Use the tree on the left to pick a skill and the panel on the right to read or edit it.

When the Mind has no skills yet, the tab reads No skills yet and explains: "Skills are playbooks this Mind loads when a request needs them. Create one, import a SKILL.md file, or write one with the Mind."

The counter next to Skills at the top, for example 12 / 50, shows how many skills the Mind's assistant sees in its list: built-in skills, organization skills and the Mind skills that are on. Type in Search skills to find a skill by its name, title or description.

What the four groups hold

The tree groups skills by where they come from.

A badge on a row says what you are looking at. Point at one to read its meaning.

• Built-in marks a skill that ships with the product, and Org one your organization publishes. Their tooltips read Built into DataMind and Organization skill from your administrators.
• AI marks a skill the Mind wrote, with the tooltip Written by the Mind - turned off until someone reviews it. It arrives turned off.
• Disabled marks a skill that is switched off, and / only marks one that runs only when someone types its name.
• Forced marks an organization skill your organization requires. Nobody can turn it off.
• Roles marks a skill that only some roles get.
• Hidden marks a skill that a built-in or organization skill with the same name shadows, for example A built-in skill has the same name, so agents never load this one. Rename your skill.
• Not listed marks a skill the assistant does not see, because the Mind is over the 50-skill limit.

A number at the end of a row tells you how many times the Mind's assistant loaded the skill in the last 30 days. Point at the row to read more, for example Loaded 12 times in the last 30 days, 3 with no tool call after. Only the times the assistant loaded the skill on its own count, not the times someone ran it with / or the runs of a skill test. The same line shows under the skill's title when you open it.

Create a skill

You need Add Mind Skills.

1. In the Skills tab, click New skill.
2. Give the skill a Name. A name uses lowercase letters, digits and single hyphens and runs up to 64 characters, for example monthly-close, and the chat runs it as /{name}.
3. Write the Title, a Description that says which tasks the skill is for, and the skill's steps in Markdown in the SKILL.md tab. The assistant sees the first 500 characters of the description, so say there what the skill does and when to use it.
4. Leave Slash command on if people may run the skill by typing its /name in a chat.
5. Optionally add reference files, up to eight, one per tab: click the Add reference button after the document tabs, then fill its Key, Title and text. The assistant loads a reference only when a step of the skill needs it.
6. Click Save in the bar at the bottom, or press Ctrl+S.

A new skill is on in this Mind. If the Mind's list is already full, it is saved turned off.

To have the Mind write the skill instead, click Create with AI and describe the task. It opens a chat with the Mind, ready to create a skill, and needs Author Mind Skills with AI. A skill the Mind writes is saved as a draft that starts turned off until someone reviews it. See Save a skill from a chat.

Import a skill

1. Click Import.
2. Choose a SKILL.md file or a .zip with SKILL.md and references/*.md, up to 2 MB, and click Read file. The file is read into a draft; nothing is saved until you save it.

Share a skill with other Minds

1. Pick the skill and click Share.
2. In Share with Minds, choose the Minds that should see it, and confirm.

A shared skill appears in the other Mind's Shared with this mind group. Nothing is copied, so your edits reach every Mind it is shared with. To share several skills at once, click Select skills to share, tick the skills and click Share with Minds.

Use Copy to Minds instead when the other Mind should hold its own independent copy rather than a share. Later edits here do not reach the copies.

To work on a skill the Mind does not own, convert it: Convert to local opens Convert to a local skill? and makes the Mind a copy it can edit.

• A converted shared skill keeps its name, and the shared skill no longer reaches this Mind.
• A converted organization or built-in skill gets a new name.
• When you convert an organization skill that is on, the organization skill is turned off in this Mind, so the assistant does not see both. A required organization skill stays on.

Turn a skill on or off

A skill in This mind has its own switch. Switch it off and the Mind stops loading it; the skill stays in the tree, marked Disabled. A force-published organization skill has no switch and instead reads Required by your organization: it cannot be turned off.

Switching needs Enable/Disable Mind Skills. A Mind lists at most 50 skills. When the list is full, the switch reads This Mind already lists 50 skills. Turn one off first. Turn another skill off, then turn this one on.

Read a skill's history

Every save is a new revision.

1. Pick the skill and open History, at the bottom of the skill.
2. Each entry is one revision. Select a revision to read it under Revision, or open Changes and pick a revision in Compare with to see the difference between them.
3. Restore this revision saves the old text as a new revision, so nothing is lost.

If someone else saved the skill while you were editing, saving shows This skill changed. Click Reload the skill to load the newest revision and drop your edits, or Keep my edits to copy your text out first. Saving asks again until you reload.

Export or remove a skill

• Export downloads the skill as a .zip with its SKILL.md and its reference files.
• Delete removes a skill the Mind owns. If the skill is shared, it moves to one of the Minds it is shared with instead. Remove from this Mind takes a shared skill out of this Mind only; the Mind that owns it keeps it.

Run a skill with /

In a chat with a Mind, type / in the message box. Under the commands, the menu lists every skill you can run in this chat: the skills that are on in this Mind and have Slash command on. Each one shows its title and a badge for where it comes from: Built-in, Org or Mind.

Pick a skill. It appears above the message box, and the Mind loads it together with your next message. You can add up to three skills to one message. To drop one, remove it from above the message box before you send. Skills are not in the menu of a swarm agent's chat. See Knowledge search and skills.

The AI panels of Slides, Model AI, custom visuals and the Lake connector assistants have the same menu, with the built-in and organization skills that reach that assistant. When one of these assistants loads a skill, the chat shows Loading the skill and its name. Click the skill to read the text it follows.

Save a skill from a chat

In an Analytical Mind, Warehouse Builder or Lake Builder chat, you can ask the Mind to save a method as a skill, or to improve a skill that the Mind owns. You need Author Mind Skills with AI.

1. Ask the Mind to save the procedure as a skill. You can also paste the text of a skill, for example a SKILL.md file, and ask the Mind to save it.
2. The Mind shows you the full text first. Reply yes, or say what to change. It saves only after your yes.
3. The Mind saves the skill to this Mind, turned off. In a Warehouse Builder or Lake Builder chat, the save follows the chat's acceptance mode, so an approval card may appear first. See Choose how changes are approved.
4. To try the skill, ask the Mind to use it in the same chat. Until the skill is turned on, only that chat can load it, and the Mind treats it as an unreviewed draft that never outranks your messages.
5. When the skill works, someone with Enable/Disable Mind Skills turns it on for the Mind. From then on, it is in the Mind's list in every chat.

After a save, the chat shows a card such as Skill "monthly-close" saved as a draft, turned off, with the AI and Disabled badges. Click the card to read the skill, or a change to see what changed, and click Open in Skills to open it in the Mind's Skills tab. In an Analytical Mind, while a change waits for approval, the message box shows A skill change is awaiting your decision: approve or reject it on its card first.

To change a skill:

• The Mind changes only skills that it owns. Built-in, organization and shared skills are read-only for the Mind. Convert such a skill to a local skill first, then ask the Mind to change that copy.
• A change to a skill that is turned on applies wherever the skill is on, including the other Minds it is shared with.
• In an Analytical Mind, a change to a skill that is turned on in any Mind waits for approval: the Mind shows an approval card and stops until a person approves or rejects the change. Saving a new skill, and changing a skill that is still off everywhere, happen at once.
• In a Warehouse Builder or Lake Builder chat, saves and changes follow the chat's acceptance mode.

The Mind never saves or changes a skill you did not ask for. If you correct it twice or more on the same procedure, it may offer once to save that procedure as a skill. If you decline or do not answer, it does not offer again in that chat.

Use a skill for a repeatable method with several steps. Use a training card for a fact or rule the Mind should always apply. Put a metric definition in the semantic model as a measure. A skill can name that measure, but it does not redefine it.

Test a skill

Click Test skill at the bottom of a skill, or ask the Mind in an Analytical Mind, Warehouse Builder or Lake Builder chat. A benchmark compares the skill with running without it or with its previous revision, a trigger test checks which requests make the Mind load it, and a tuning run looks for a better description. Each test starts only after you confirm or approve its estimate, and test chats never change data.

Next to Test skill, a skill of This mind shows Last benchmark with the result of its newest benchmark, or Not tested. Click the badge to open that benchmark. See Test a skill.

Limits

• A skill Name runs up to 64 characters, a Title up to 60, a Description up to 1,024, and the instructions up to 28,000 characters. The assistant's list shows the first 500 characters of the description.
• A skill carries up to 8 reference files, each up to 20,000 characters, and an import takes a file up to 2 MB.
• A Mind owns up to 200 skills, and your company has up to 64 organization skills.
• A Mind lists up to 50 skills. Over that, the tab warns: "This Mind is over the 50-skill limit, so the agent does not see some skills. Turn some skills off."
• One share can cover up to 100 Minds and 100 skills at a time.
• A Mind skill cannot take the name of a built-in or organization skill, or a name that the Mind already sees.

Who can do what

• To open the tab you need View Mind Skills. It also lets you open a skill's tests and read their results. Creating, importing, copying and converting need Add Mind Skills, which also lets you test a new skill before it is saved.
• Editing, sharing and restoring need Edit Mind Skills, which also lets you test the skills the Mind owns and write their test tasks and reviewer notes. Switching a skill on or off needs Enable/Disable Mind Skills. Removing one needs Remove Mind Skills.
• Letting the Mind write its own skills needs Author Mind Skills with AI, together with Create with AI in the chat. It also lets the Mind test versions it has not saved. Without it, the Mind tells you that saving skills is not available in this conversation, and that an administrator can grant the permission.
• Working with a Mind's skills also needs the right to manage that Mind.
• The Mind Skills Manager preset gives the first five permissions, and Mind Skills Viewer gives View Mind Skills. The Mind Skills AI Author preset gives Author Mind Skills with AI.
• Permissions are set in Roles and permissions; the sets are listed in Who can do what with Minds.

Questions, answered

What is the difference between a skill and a training card?

A training card is knowledge you give a Mind, and a knowledge search reads its vectorised cards. A skill is a playbook that tells the Mind how to carry out a task. Write a skill for a method with several steps that the Mind repeats, such as how to build a monthly report. Write a training card for a fact or a rule, such as which table holds active customers. Training cards live in Train a Mind with training cards.

Can the Mind use a skill I created?

Yes, once the skill is switched on. The Mind loads it when a chat needs it, and you can start a chat with it directly from the / menu. See Chat commands, shortcuts and privacy.

Why is my new skill turned off?

A skill the Mind wrote with AI is saved as a draft that starts turned off, so nobody uses it before someone has read it. Until someone with Enable/Disable Mind Skills turns it on, only the chat that saved it can load it. A skill you create is also saved turned off when the Mind already lists 50 skills. Read it and switch it on.

Why can I not turn off a skill?

It is an organization skill marked Forced, so it reads Required by your organization: it cannot be turned off. Only an administrator can change it.

Why can I not read the text of an organization skill?

The skill is limited to roles you do not hold. You can see that it exists, but not its text.

Why does a skill show as Hidden?

A built-in or organization skill has the same name, so agents never load this one. Rename your skill if it should be the one that runs.

Can I share a skill with more than one Mind at a time?

Yes. Share with Minds takes several Minds in one step, up to 100 at a time. To share several skills at once, use Select skills to share.

What is the difference between sharing and copying a skill?

A share appears in the other Mind's Shared with this mind group and follows the original skill, so your later edits reach it. Copy to Minds gives the other Mind its own independent copy, which it can then change on its own, and later edits in either Mind stay there.

How do I get a shared skill I can edit?

Use Convert to local. It makes a copy the Mind owns, and the copy is independent of the one that was shared.

Can I undo a change to a skill?

Yes. Open History, compare the revision you want with the current one, and restore it. The restore is saved as a new revision, so the older text stays in the history.

Can a skill make a Mind skip an approval?

No. A skill never changes the acceptance mode, approves a change or grants a permission. If a skill asks for any of this, the Mind does not follow that part and tells you which skill asked.

What happens to skills when a Mind is duplicated or deleted?

A duplicate gets its own copy of every skill the original owns, each on or off as in the original. Later changes to one copy do not reach the other. Organization skills turned off in the original are off in the duplicate too, and skills shared into the original stay shared with the duplicate when you can manage the Mind that owns them. Deleting a Mind deletes the skills it owns, also from the Minds they are shared with.