Skills in a plugin

A skill is a reusable set of instructions that an AI coding tool loads when it is relevant, usually run as a slash command such as /atn:mindmap. In Athenode a skill belongs to an plugin, which is a named bundle of what your AI tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and plugin files. You write or import skills in the web UI, and installing the plugin puts them into your repository in the form each AI tool reads.

Part	What it holds
Name	1 to 64 characters: lowercase letters and digits, separated by single hyphens, such as write-e2e-tests. The name is unique in the plugin and is what you type to run the skill.
Description	Required. Your AI tool reads the description to decide when to load the skill, so say what the skill does and when to use it.
Instructions	The Markdown body of the skill's SKILL.md.
Bundle files	Other files the skill needs, such as templates, scripts or reference notes. A skill holds up to 500 files and 25 MB in total including SKILL.md, with up to 5 MB per file.
Settings	Options for all AI tools or for one AI tool, such as whether the tool may load the skill by itself.
Source	For an imported skill, the repository it came from.

You need the owner or editor role to change a plugin. A viewer can open a skill and read it. The roles and permissions page has the full list.

A plugin holds as many skills as you need.

Write a skill

Write a skill when you want your AI agent to follow the same procedure every time, for example how your team writes end-to-end tests for the web shop's checkout.

1. On the Plugins page, select the plugin's card. Its blueprint appears below the cards.
2. On the Skills part of the blueprint, select the add button (Add to Skills).
3. In the inspector, choose Write a new skill.
4. Enter the Name and the Description.
5. Select Create skill. The inspector shows Skill created and opens the skill.
6. On the Instructions tab, write the instructions in Markdown and save them.
7. Optional: on the Files tab, add the bundle files the instructions refer to.

The skill appears in the Skills part of the blueprint. When you open it, the inspector marks it Created here. A skill that came from a repository is marked Imported.

Import skills from a repository or from skills.sh

Import skills when the instructions exist already, in your own repository, in a public one or in the skills.sh directory. An imported skill remembers its source, so you can update it later.

1. On the Skills part of the blueprint, select the add button and choose Import skills.
2. Under 1 · Source, choose where the skills come from:
   • Presets: sources picked by Athenode.
   • skills.sh: a search of the public skills directory. Enter at least two characters.
   • Git URL: enter a Repository or index URL and select Preview. The URL is a GitHub or GitLab repository, optionally followed by /tree/<ref>/<path> to point at a branch, a tag or a folder, or the address of a skills index. It must start with https://.
3. Under 2 · Find, pick the source or the search result to preview.
4. Under 3 · Choose skills, expand a skill to check it before you import it. The preview shows the skill's frontmatter, its files with their sizes, any warnings, and the MCP servers the skill uses, marked Required or Suggested and In plugin or Not in plugin.
5. Select the skills you want, or Select all.
6. If a skill has the same name as one in the plugin, choose Replace existing skill or Keep existing (skip) for it.
7. Select the import button, which reads Import 3 skills when three are selected.

Each skill is then marked Imported, Replaced, Skipped (not replaced) or Failed. Retry failed runs the import again for the skills that failed.

When the imported skills use MCP servers, the panel MCP servers for the imported skills lists them with a status: Already in plugin, Found in catalog, a number of catalogue matches, or Not in catalog. Select Add next to a server to add it to the plugin. A server that is not in the catalogue is added by hand, as MCP servers in a plugin describes.

Edit a skill's instructions and bundle files

Select a skill in the Skills part of the blueprint to open it in the inspector. The name and the description are edited in place at the top. Renaming a skill changes what you type to run it, and other skills that call it by its old name stop finding it.

The Instructions tab holds the body of SKILL.md without its frontmatter. The frontmatter is the block of settings at the top of the installed file, and Athenode writes it from the name, the description and the Settings tab.

The Files tab holds the bundle files:

• Add offers + File, + Folder and Upload. A folder is kept once it contains a file.
• A text file opens in an editor when you select it. A binary file can be downloaded or replaced with another upload.
• Each file can be renamed, moved to another folder, deleted or downloaded.
• Executable marks a script so that it is installed as an executable file.

Two files in the same folder cannot have names that differ only in letter case. The header of the tab shows how many files the skill holds and their total size, against the limits of 500 files, 25 MB in total and 5 MB per file.

Set a skill's options for each AI tool

The Settings tab holds the options that are written into the frontmatter of the installed SKILL.md. Common settings apply to every AI tool. Each AI tool also has an entry of its own for the options only that tool reads. GitHub Copilot, Google Antigravity and Kiro have two entries each, one for the editor and one for the command-line tool.

Common setting	Meaning
description	The skill's description. It is the same text as the description at the top of the skill.
disable-model-invocation	When on, the AI tool does not load the skill by itself. The skill runs only when you run it.
user-invocable	Whether you can run the skill yourself as a slash command.

To set an option for one AI tool:

1. On the Settings tab, select the tool. Filter AI tools narrows the list by name.
2. Select Add field and pick a field. The list holds the fields that tool reads in a skill, such as model or allowed-tools.
3. Enter the value. Depending on the field it is text, a number, an on or off switch, a choice from a list, a list of values, or JSON.

A tool with no fields of its own set shows Uses Common settings. To take an option away, remove its field and confirm Remove field?.

For Claude Code a skill can carry hooks, which run a command, an HTTP request, an MCP tool or a prompt when the AI agent reaches an event. Add the field hooks on the Claude Code entry and select Add hook. The form is the same as for an agent's hooks, described in agents in a plugin.

Update imported skills

The Source tab of an imported skill shows its Repository, Ref, Path, Pinned revision and the date it was Imported. Athenode compares the pinned revision with the source when you ask it to.

1. On the Skills part of the blueprint, select Check for updates to check every imported skill of the plugin. To check one skill, open its Source tab and select Check for updates there.
2. If updates exist, a banner reads "2 imported skills have an update." with the number that applies. Select Review update, or open a skill and select View changes.
3. Read the changes. The dialog lists each file as Added, Changed or Removed and shows the differences Side by side or Unified.
4. Select Apply update and confirm. Apply all in the banner updates every skill that has an update, after one confirmation.

The blueprint marks a skill with Update available, Edited locally or Removed upstream. A skill that was removed from its source stays in your plugin as it is, and there is nothing to apply.

Customise a skill that Athenode supplies

The files of a skill that Athenode supplies, such as a built-in skill of the standard Athenode plugin, are read-only. To change them, open the skill and select Customize to edit files. The project gets its own editable copy of the skill in place of the supplied one.

Athenode updates the built-in skills of your project's copy of the standard plugin only while you have not changed them, so a customised skill stays as you left it.

Remove a skill from a plugin

Open the skill, open its menu and select Delete. The dialog Remove skill from plugin? names the skill. After you confirm, the skill leaves this plugin. If no other plugin of the project uses it, it is deleted with its files, which cannot be undone. Other plugins that use the skill keep it.

The built-in skills of the standard plugin call each other by name, so removing or renaming one of them stops the others from working.

Use the plugin's skills in your AI tool

Skills reach your repository when you install the plugin with init, and again each time you run init after changing the plugin in the web UI.

athenode init

For each AI tool you selected, every skill becomes a folder that holds SKILL.md and the bundle files. In a tool that receives the plugin as files, the folder is named after the skill and is in the tool's own skills folder. Cursor, for example, reads .cursor/skills/write-e2e-tests/SKILL.md. In a tool that receives the plugin as a plugin package, such as Claude Code, the folder is inside the plugin package. The files installed per tool page gives the folder for each of the 30 supported AI tools, and the supported AI tools page says how to run a skill in each one.

The installed files are overwritten by the next install, so change a skill in the web UI and not in the repository. init flags files you edited locally before it overwrites them.

Manage skills from your AI tool

From your AI tool, ask /atn:manage to list, create, change or remove a skill. It works on the installed plugin unless you name another, and it updates the installed files itself.

Your AI agent reaches the same actions through the tools skills_list, skills_create, skills_update and skills_remove of the Athenode MCP server.

Bundle files, importing and updates from a source are handled in the web UI.

Ready-made skills are also part of the plugins that other projects publish. You can read them in the plugin library catalogue and add or merge them as the plugin library page describes.