Skills

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Overview

A Skill is a focused, reusable instruction set that gives an agent a named capability — written once in Markdown and shared across as many agents as you need. Instead of duplicating instructions or hardwiring behavior into every agent separately, you define the logic in a Skill, attach it where needed, and invoke it on demand during any conversation. Typical use cases

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Accessing Skills

To open the Skills area:

1. Select the correct project from the project switcher at the top of the left sidebar.
2. Click Skills in the main navigation sidebar. The Skills page opens, showing the Skills tab — a scrollable list (or card grid) of all Skills in the current project.

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Creating a Skill

You can create a Skill from the Skills page or directly from the agent editor.

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From the Skills page

1. Click the + (Create) button in the top section of the left sidebar, or navigate to the Skills page and click Create in the empty state (if no Skills exist yet) to open the skill creation form.
   • Alternatively, use the global + Create button in the sidebar and select Skill from the dropdown. The New Skill form opens with two accordion sections: General and Instructions
2. In the General section, fill in the following fields:

   Field	Required	Example
   Name	Yes	code-reviewer
   Description	Yes	Reviews code for quality issues and suggests improvements.
   Tags	No	qa, review

   Name must use lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens only; no leading/trailing hyphens; max 64 characters; cannot contain claude or anthropic.
3. In the Instructions section, type your skill instructions in the Markdown/CodeMirror editor.
   • Use the toggle button group in the section header to switch between Edit mode (raw Markdown) and Preview mode (rendered output).
   • A character counter at the bottom of the editor shows remaining characters. The maximum is 2,500 characters.
   Example instructions:
   ## Code Review
   
   When reviewing code, always:
   - Check for security vulnerabilities (SQL injection, XSS, hardcoded secrets).
   - Flag functions longer than 40 lines and suggest splitting them.
   - Verify that all public methods have meaningful names and are documented.
   - Confirm error handling is present for all external calls.
   
   Format your response as:
   1. **Summary** — one sentence verdict.
   2. **Issues** — bulleted list with file and line references.
   3. **Suggestions** — concrete fix for each issue.
   
4. Click Save in the tab bar at the top of the page.

After clicking Save, the Skill configuration page will open, showing the Skill’s name in the tab bar and the General and Instructions * sections in the left panel. The right panel contains a test chat panel where you can interact with the Skill directly to verify its behavior.

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AI-Assisted Generation

Instead of filling in the form manually, click the Generate with AI button in the General section header to open the Generate skill modal.

1. Describe what you want the Skill to do in the input field. Example prompt:
   Create a skill that reviews pull request descriptions. It should check that the PR
   has a clear summary, lists affected components, includes test coverage notes,
   and flags any missing ticket references.
   
2. Elitea drafts a Name, Description, and Instructions for you.
3. Review and edit the draft in the modal.
4. Click Approve to apply it to the form, then click Save.

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Executing a Skill

After saving a Skill, the right panel of the Skill editor contains a test chat panel — a stateless, ephemeral chat that lets you interact with the Skill directly without creating a persisted conversation. Use it to verify instructions before attaching the Skill to any agent.

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Selecting the LLM Model and Settings

Before sending a message, you can choose which AI model processes the Skill and optionally fine-tune its parameters.

1. Click the model chip in the chat input bar to open the model selector dropdown.
2. Choose the desired model from the list (e.g., gpt-4o, gpt-5.1).
3. Click the Model Settings icon (⚙️) next to the model chip to adjust generation parameters.

Max Completion Tokens (All Models)

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Voice Capabilities

The Skill test chat panel supports the same voice features as the agent chat interface. Voice Input Click the microphone icon in the message input toolbar to start recording. Speak your prompt — a live transcript appears in the input field as you talk. Click Stop (■) to finish; the final transcript is committed to the input field. Text-to-Speech A Read out button (megaphone icon) appears in the action bar below each Skill response. Click it to start playback — the text is highlighted as it is read. A playback pill in the input area provides Pause and Resume controls. Speaking Mode Speaking Mode is a continuous, hands-free voice loop. Leave the input field empty, then click the voicewave icon (shown in place of the Send button) to activate it. ELITEA records your speech, sends your prompt after 3 seconds of silence, plays back the response, and then starts listening again. Click ✕ in the voicewave pill to exit.

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Versioning a Skill

Skills support multiple named versions in addition to the always-present base version. To create a new version:

1. Open the Skill editor and make your changes.
2. Click Save As Version in the tab bar.
3. The Create version dialog appears. Enter a unique version name in the input field.
   • The name base is reserved and cannot be used.
   • Duplicate names within the same Skill are rejected with an error toast.
4. Click Save in the dialog to confirm.
5. The page navigates to the new version automatically.

Use the version selector in the tab bar of the Skill editor. It lists all saved versions with the default version shown first. Non-default versions are sorted by creation date (newest first). The base version appears last unless it is currently set as the default. To set the default version:

1. Open the Skill editor and navigate to the version you want to set as default.
2. Click the ⋮ overflow menu (top-right corner of the tab bar) to open the controls menu.
3. Select Set as a default under the VERSION section.
   • This option is disabled if the selected version is already the default.
   

The overflow menu also provides Share (copy a link to the current version) and Share under the SKILL section (copy a link to the skill). To delete a version:

1. Navigate to the version you want to delete.
2. Open the ⋮ overflow menu and select Delete under the VERSION section.
3. Confirm deletion in the confirmation dialog.
   • You cannot delete the default version or the base version.
   

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Exporting and Importing Skills

Exporting a Skill

1. Open the Skill and navigate to the version you want to export.
2. Click the ⋮ overflow menu in the tab bar.
3. Under the VERSION section, select Export.
4. A .json file for the current version is downloaded to your machine.

Importing a Skill

1. On the Skills page, click the Import icon button in the top toolbar.
2. A file picker opens. Select the .json export file from your machine.
3. The Import parameters dialog appears, showing:
   • PROJECT — a project selector (defaults to the currently selected project). Change it to import the Skill into a different project.
   • MAIN ENTITY — a preview card showing the Skill name, type, description, and instructions from the file.
4. Click Import to create the Skill, or Cancel to abort.

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Attaching a Skill to an Agent

Skills are attached at the agent version level, not to the agent as a whole. You must save the agent before Skills can be attached.

1. Open the agent you want to configure (Agents → click the agent name).
2. In the agent configuration form, scroll to the Skills accordion section (below the Instructions and Toolkits sections).
3. Click the + Skill button to open the skill picker dropdown.
   • The button is disabled and shows a tooltip if the agent has not been saved yet (Save the agent first, then add skills) or if the 5-Skill limit has been reached (Maximum number of skills reached).
4. Search for the Skill by name in the Search skills… field, or browse the list.
5. Click a Skill to attach it. It attaches immediately using the Skill’s base version.
   • Skills already attached to the agent version are excluded from the list to prevent duplicates.
   

To create a new Skill from the agent editor:

1. Click + Skill in the Skills accordion.
2. Click Create new at the bottom of the picker dropdown.
3. You are taken to the Skill creation form.

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Changing the Attached Version Each attached Skill card shows the currently active version name below the Skill’s name. To change which version the agent uses:

1. On the Skill card inside the agent’s Skills section, click the version name (e.g., base).
2. A Versions dropdown appears, listing all available versions.
3. Click the desired version. The attachment is updated automatically (the old version is detached and the new version is re-attached).
4. The selected version is highlighted with a check mark.

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Using Skills in Chat (Skill Mention)

When an agent has one or more Skills attached, users can invoke a Skill explicitly during a chat conversation by typing ~ (tilde) followed by the Skill name in the chat composer.

1. In a chat conversation with an agent that has Skills attached, type ~ in the message input.
2. A Mention skill dropdown appears above the input, listing all Skills attached to that agent.
   • If no Skills are attached, the dropdown shows: “No skills attached to this agent”.
3. Type additional characters to filter the list, or use the arrow keys to highlight a Skill.
4. Press Enter or click the Skill name to insert it as a mention token in your message.
5. Send the message. The agent receives and executes that Skill’s instructions for this turn.

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Deleting a Skill

1. Open the ⋮ menu in the editor tab bar.
2. Under the SKILL section, select Delete skill.
3. Type the Skill name to confirm, then click Delete.

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Troubleshooting

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