New VDF AI Enterprise is now available on AWS Marketplace
VDF AI Agents

Creating and validating Skills

Create a private Agent Skill in the editor or from a ZIP, then resolve structural and metadata problems before binding it to an agent.

Updated Sep 4, 2026 3 min read
On this page

Choose an authoring path

Open Agent Builder → Skills, then select Add Skill.

Use the editor

Choose the editor when you are starting a new procedure. Begin with a narrow job and make the description specific enough that an agent can tell when the Skill should activate.

Upload a Skill ZIP

Choose upload when you already have a compatible Skill directory. The archive must contain SKILL.md at the root of the Skill folder. Supporting directories can include references, assets, scripts, agents, or evals.

Import supported plugin content

Use Import Plugin to extract compatible Agent Skills from a supported Agent Plugin package. This imports supported Skill content; it does not install every component of the source plugin.

Write useful metadata

A strong Skill starts with:

  • A lowercase, hyphenated name that matches its folder.
  • A precise description covering both what it does and when it applies.
  • An owner and version in metadata.
  • allowed-tools listing only capabilities the procedure can actually use.
  • Compatibility notes for runtime-specific requirements.
---
name: source-check
description: Check a current factual claim against authoritative sources.
metadata:
  author: your-team
  version: "1.0"
allowed-tools: web_search web_crawler
---

The allowed-tools field documents the capability set. It does not grant those tools to an agent.

Keep the procedure narrow

Write the Skill for one recognisable class of work. Include:

  1. The conditions that make the Skill relevant.
  2. The sequence that should remain consistent.
  3. Important judgement calls and stop conditions.
  4. The expected output shape.
  5. Boundaries the agent must report rather than guess through.

Move long background material into references/ so it can be read only when needed.

Validate before saving

Select Validate to inspect the complete bundle. VDF returns all detected problems together so you can fix them in one pass.

Resolve:

  • Missing or malformed frontmatter.
  • Invalid names or directory structure.
  • Unsupported metadata shapes.
  • Missing referenced files.
  • Unknown allowed-tool identifiers.
  • Archive paths that escape the Skill directory.

Validation checks structure and declared requirements. It cannot prove that the procedure produces a good business outcome; that happens during testing.

Protect sensitive material

Do not include credentials, personal access tokens, private keys, or unreviewed customer data in a bundle. Treat scripts and imported files as software supply-chain inputs even when the current runtime does not execute scripts.

Next step

Continue to binding, invoking, and testing Skills.