Skills

Skills are reusable packages of instructions, tools, and prompts that give your AI assistant new capabilities. aix allows you to define a skill once and use it everywhere.

What is a Skill?#

A skill is defined by a SKILL.md file that follows the Agent Skills Specification. It typically contains:

• Metadata: Name, version, description.
• Tools: Which MCP tools or shell commands the skill needs.
• Instructions: The prompt that teaches the AI how to use the skill.
• Triggers: Slash commands (e.g., /git) that activate the skill.

Creating a Skill#

Use aix skill init to scaffold a new skill.

aix skill init my-feature

This creates a directory my-feature/ with a starter SKILL.md:

---
name: my-feature
description: Description of what this skill does
version: 1.0.0
tools:
  - Bash
triggers:
  - /feature
---

# My Feature Skill

You are an expert at...

Installing Skills#

Once you have a skill defined (or downloaded), install it to your active platforms.

From a Repository#

The recommended way to install skills is through a registered repository. Once you have added a repository, you can install skills by name.

# Search and install a skill from your configured repos
aix skill install git-workflow

From Local Files#

You can also install skills directly from a local directory or file.

# Install from a local directory
aix skill install ./my-feature

From a Remote URL#

aix also supports installing skills directly from a raw SKILL.md URL.

# Install from a remote URL
aix skill install https://example.com/skills/git-workflow.md

Targeting Platforms#

By default, aix installs the skill to all configured platforms. You can restrict this with flags:

# Install only to OpenCode
aix skill install ./my-feature --platform opencode

How does this work? aix reads your skill definition and translates it into the native configuration format for each platform. See the Platform Configuration guide for details on which files are modified.

Managing Skills#

Listing Skills#

See what skills are installed and which platforms they are active on.

aix skill list

Removing Skills#

To remove a skill from all platforms:

aix skill remove my-feature

Best Practices#

1. Keep it Focused: A skill should do one thing well (e.g., “Git Workflow” or “Database Migration”).
2. Define Tools: Explicitly list required tools in the tools frontmatter section so aix can validate permissions.
3. Use Triggers: Define clear slash commands (e.g., /test, /deploy) to make the skill easy to invoke.