A reusable way of doing the work
An Agent Skill is a directory containing a required SKILL.md file and optional supporting resources. Its metadata helps an agent discover when the procedure applies; its body describes how to complete that kind of work.
Skills sit between an agent and its tools:
| Layer | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Agent | Identity, model, role, and runtime configuration |
| Skill | Procedure, judgement, and supporting context |
| Tool | A separately permitted capability or external action |
| Network | Orchestration across model-driven nodes |
A Skill never grants a tool. The agent must be assigned every capability the Skill can call, and the connected account must also be authorised.
Included system Skills
VDF AI currently includes eight validated system Skills:
- Web Research — investigate current questions with live sources and citations.
- Connected Knowledge Search — answer from indexed enterprise systems.
- Document Review — inspect files and scans while staying grounded in their contents.
- File Deliverables — turn complete content into a downloadable document, PDF, presentation, spreadsheet, or Markdown file.
- Option Comparison — compare alternatives against explicit criteria and recommend one.
- Data Quality Review — profile data, test anomalies, and produce a short visual assessment.
- Safe Write Actions — preview an external change, obtain agreement, then use an authorised write tool.
- Ticket Writing — create implementation-ready Jira or GitHub work items from raw context.
System Skills are maintained by VDF AI and are read-only in the product. Browse their public descriptions in the Agent Skills catalog.
Private user Skills
You can create a private Skill in the editor or upload a compatible ZIP. Private Skills belong to their creator and do not appear in the public catalog.
Use a private Skill when your organisation has a method that should remain consistent across repeated work, such as:
- Your incident-summary format.
- A regulated review checklist.
- Your product-launch decision gates.
- A customer-specific report structure.
How Skills enter context
VDF AI uses progressive disclosure:
- The agent first sees compact Skill names and descriptions.
- It loads full instructions when a Skill is selected or clearly relevant.
- It reads bundled references or assets only when the procedure needs them.
- It calls separately assigned tools under the agent’s permission policy.
- The run can report activations and supporting-file reads.
You can also invoke an available Skill explicitly with /skill-name followed by your request. Automatic model-initiated activation depends on provider support, so use explicit invocation when deterministic selection matters.
What a Skill can contain
SKILL.md— required metadata and instructions.references/— detailed material loaded on demand.assets/— templates or resources used by the procedure.scripts/— optional helper code for clients that support it.evals/— representative tests and expected behaviour.
Runtime boundary. VDF AI stores and exposes bundled files for controlled reading. The current environment does not execute bundled scripts.