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A skill tells a bot how a particular job is done — the checklist for a weekly report, the steps for a support triage, the way your team wants a summary written. Instead of carrying every procedure in its context all the time, the bot loads a skill when the task calls for it.

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Enable a skill

1

Sign in and open a bot you own

A guest cannot enable or run skills.
2

Enable the first-party skills the bot should follow

Each bot has its own set. Enable only what that bot’s job needs.
3

Let the bot use them

The bot loads a skill through its skill tool when a task matches. You can also ask for one by name in the conversation.

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Skills are not…

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How a bot reaches a skill

A skill is not a tool the bot runs on its own initiative — it is an instruction bundle the skill tool loads, and the skill tool is one entry in the catalog a bot receives. See Tools for where it sits among files and shell, computer use, browser, and the user-visible tools. Because a skill is instructions rather than a capability, loading one does not add permissions. A skill that tells the bot to change something in a connected app still parks that change behind Approvals, and a skill that tells it to delete files still parks the dangerous step. The skill describes the job; the approval decides whether it runs.

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What you see when a skill runs

A skill runs inside the bot’s turn, so it does not produce a row of its own. The conversation shows only the user-visible tools — send_to_user, ask_user, notify, and secret_request — and the Computer rail shows the rest as it happens. See How Bot works.

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Skills in the CLI

The CLI has its own skills system for the coding agent — SKILL.md bundles with frontmatter, found in your project or under ~/.cortex/skills/, loaded through a UseSkill tool and gated by the permission.skill table. Those are CLI skills for Code, separate from Bot’s first-party skills. See Extend the CLI.

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Related

  • Tools — the skill tool and the rest of the catalog.
  • How Bot works — what you see when a skill runs.
  • Routines — the schedule a skill does not provide.