Skills

Skills are knowledge documents that the agent loads on demand. They are compatible with the open agentskills.io standard — used by Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and dozens of other tools.

How Skills Work

Skills use progressive disclosure to minimize token usage:

Level 0: skills_list()        → [name, description, category]  (~3k tokens)
Level 1: skill_view(name)      → Full content + metadata
Level 2: skill_view(name, path) → Specific reference file

The agent loads full skill content only when it actually needs it. It can have dozens of skills ready with minimal context overhead.

Using Skills

Every installed skill is automatically available as a slash command:

# In CLI or messaging platform:
/gif-search funny cats
/github-pr-workflow create a PR for the auth refactor
/excalidraw design the database architecture
/plan create a migration plan for the new auth provider

# Composing multiple skills (up to 5):
/github-pr-workflow /test-driven-development fix issue #123 and open PR

Built-in Skill Categories

🤖

Autonomous AI Agents

Spawning and orchestrating independent coding agents and task delegation.

claude-codecodexopencode

💻

Software Development

TDD, debugging, code review, planning, refactoring, and code simplification.

plantdddebuggingcode-review

🔬

Data Science

Jupyter notebooks, interactive Python, data analysis, visualization.

jupyter

🐙

GitHub Workflow

Repository management, pull requests, code review, issues, CI/CD.

github-prgithub-issuesgithub-review

🎨

Creative

ASCII art, diagrams, architecture, Excalidraw, p5.js, Manim animations.

excalidrawascii-artdiagramp5js

🤖

MLOps

Model training, fine-tuning, HuggingFace, evaluation, inference.

huggingfacevllmllama-cpp

📊

Productivity

Google Workspace, Notion, PowerPoint, PDF, OCR, spreadsheets.

google-workspacenotionpowerpoint

🔍

Research

ArXiv, search, web extraction, blog monitoring, YouTube.

arxivweb-searchyoutube

📧

Communication

Email, social media, messaging, notes, sharing.

emailhimalayasocial-media

🏠

Smart Home

Light control, sensors, and home automation.

openhuesmart-home

🌐

Web & SEO

Static site deployment, SEO optimization, nginx configuration.

web-seomaps

🎵

Media

Music, audio generation, GIFs, YouTube, spectrograms.

audiocraftsongwritinggif-search

SKILL.md Format

Each skill is a folder containing SKILL.md with metadata and instructions:

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: metadata + instructions
├── scripts/          # Optional: executable code
├── references/       # Optional: documentation
├── templates/        # Optional: templates
└── assets/           # Optional: resources

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description of what the skill does
version: 1.0.0
platforms: [macos, linux]     # Optional — restrict to OS
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [python, automation]
    category: devops
---

# Skill Title

## When to Use
Trigger conditions for this skill.

## Procedure
1. Step one
2. Step two

## Common Pitfalls
- Known failures and fixes

## Verification
How to confirm it worked.

Learning a New Skill (/learn)

The fastest way to create a skill without manually writing SKILL.md. The agent gathers the material and creates a structured skill:

# From a local directory
/learn REST API in ~/projects/acme-sdk, focus on auth and pagination

# From online documentation
/learn https://docs.example.com/api/quickstart

# From conversation
/learn how I just deployed the staging server

Skills Hub

Install skills from community sources:

# Search for a skill
$ hermes skills search "docker"

# Install from hub
$ hermes skills install docker-deploy

# List installed
$ hermes skills list

Supported sources: agentskills.io, ClawHub, LobeHub, GitHub repositories.

Skill Bundles

Combine skills frequently used together under one short command. Example:

# Instead of:
/github-pr-workflow /test-driven-development fix issue #123

# Bundle "ship-it":
/ship-it fix issue #123   # Runs both skills at once

Agentskills.io — Open Standard

The Agent Skills format was originally developed by Anthropic, released as an open standard, and adopted by dozens of agent products:

Claude CodeCodexCursor Gemini CLIGitHub CopilotVS Code OpenCodeGooseLetta Mistral VibeOnaJunie DatabricksSnowflakeRoo Code

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