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What Are Skills?

Skills are portable, version-controlled packages of knowledge that extend the agent’s capabilities to perform domain-specific tasks. When you start a conversation in Kombai, the agent sees the names, descriptions, and file paths of all available skills. If your task matches a skill’s description, the agent then reads the entire SKILL.md file and follows the instructions while performing the task. You can also invoke a skill explicitly by typing /skill-name in the chat input.

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Benefits of Skills

Human-Readable

Skills are just plain Markdown files that anyone on your team can read, review, and improve.

Cross-Agent Compatible

Skills work across all AI agents that support the Agent Skills Open Standard.

Flexible & Extensible

Skills can be lightweight instructions or complex packages with scripts, docs, templates, and other assets as needed.

Portable & Shareable

Skills are self-contained folders that can easily be distributed across projects, teams, or the broader community.

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How to create a Skill

  1. Create a folder inside .kombai/skills/ in your project (or ~/.kombai/skills/ for global skills).
  2. Add a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter (name, description) and Markdown instructions.
  3. Kombai picks up the new skill automatically. Skills are re-scanned from disk each time you send a message, so you don’t have to reload Kombai.

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Manage skills from Settings

You can also create, import, and manage skills through the Rules, Commands & Skills page in Settings. Kombai lists skills under the Individual tab, grouped as User Skills (global skills stored in ~/.kombai/skills/) and Project Skills (stored in .kombai/skills/). Click Refresh at the top of the page to re-scan the lists from disk.

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Create a skill

  1. Click the gear icon below the chat input box to open Settings.
  2. Select the Rules, Commands & Skills tab from the left menu.
  3. Under Skills, click the + Add dropdown and select Create Skill. Kombai inserts the /create_skill command into the chat input.
  4. Describe the skill you want and run the command. Kombai scaffolds a skill folder with a SKILL.md file for you to fill in.

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Import a skill

Use this to bring in existing skill folders, each containing a SKILL.md file.
  1. Click the gear icon below the chat input box to open Settings.
  2. Select the Rules, Commands & Skills tab from the left menu.
  3. Under Skills, click the + Add dropdown and select Import User Skills or Import Project Skills.
  4. Browse to and select the skill folder you want to import.

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Modify or delete a skill

Under User Skills or Project Skills, click the icon next to a skill to open its SKILL.md file in the editor, or the icon to remove it.

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How Kombai uses a Skill

  1. Discovery: Before each message, the frontmatter (name, description, filepath) of all the available skills is added to the context.
  2. Evaluation: The agent evaluates your request against all descriptions.
  3. Activation: If the agent determines a skill clearly matches the assigned task, it adds the full SKILL.md to the context.
  4. Execution: The agent follows the instructions in the skill to perform the task.

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Skill directories

Skills are automatically loaded from these locations:

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Skill folder structure

SKILL.md is the only required file in the Skills folder. You can optionally include additional resources: