Skills

Reusable instruction packs for ClickHouse Agents

A skill is a reusable instruction pack an agent can apply on demand. Use skills for procedures that recur across agents — a brand-style guide, a code-review checklist, a runbook for a specific workflow — instead of duplicating the instructions into each agent’s system prompt.

Anatomy of a skill

A skill is a Markdown file with a small frontmatter header:

---
name: revenue-report
description: Generates the weekly revenue report using our standard segments
always-apply: false
user-invocable: true
---

When asked to generate a revenue report:
1. Filter to the requested period.
2. Apply the standard MRR formula:
     SUM(CASE
       WHEN billing_cycle = 'monthly' THEN amount
       WHEN billing_cycle = 'yearly'  THEN amount / 12
       ELSE 0
     END)
3. Break down by segment: Enterprise, Mid-Market, SMB.
4. Render the result as a Markdown table.

The frontmatter knobs that matter most:

• name - kebab-case identifier.
• description - short summary used by the model to decide when this skill is relevant. Treat this as the most important field. Write it specifically; vague descriptions lead to wrong-skill invocations.
• always-apply - when true, the skill is primed into every turn instead of being selected. Use sparingly; always-apply skills consume context on every message.
• user-invocable - when true (the default), the skill appears in the $ popover for manual selection.

You can bundle supporting files alongside the skill — reference docs, sample queries, small scripts — by uploading a .zip containing the SKILL.md and its assets.

Use a skill

Three ways an agent reaches for a skill in a conversation:

• User invocation - press $ in the composer and pick the skill from the popover. The skill’s content is primed for the next turn.
• Model auto-selection - based on the skill’s description, the agent decides on its own when to apply it.
• Always-apply - primed on every turn for skills configured that way.

Manage skills

The Skills panel in the Cloud console lets you create skills inline, upload .md or .zip files, and manage which skills are active for your user. Owned skills default to active; deactivate one to remove it from the popover and the model’s catalog without deleting it.

Skills can be shared with other users (see sharing and access).

Skills vs. instructions

• Agent instructions define what the agent is and how it behaves overall. Always on for that agent.
• Skills are situational — applied when relevant, scoped to specific workflows.

Reach for a skill when the same set of step-by-step instructions keeps showing up across multiple agents, or when you want it triggered only for specific user requests rather than every turn.