Why Skills?
Agents are increasingly capable, but often lack the context needed to do real work reliably. Skills solve this by giving agents access to:- Domain expertise: Specialized knowledge packaged into reusable instructions
- New capabilities: Extended functionality like creating presentations, building MCP servers, or analyzing datasets
- Repeatable workflows: Consistent, auditable multi-step task execution
- Organizational knowledge: Team and company-specific context in portable, version-controlled packages
How Skills Work in Zencoder
Zencoder automatically discovers and loads skills from these locations:
The agent decides which skill to use based on the skill’s description and the current task context. Skills are available in both Zenflow and Zencoder IDE Agents.
Skills are automatically selected by the agent based on task context. Manual skill selection is not currently supported.
Skill Structure
A skill is a folder containing aSKILL.md file with metadata and instructions:
Creating a Skill
Create aSKILL.md file in your skills folder:
SKILL.md Frontmatter Reference
Example Skills
PR Review Checklist
PR Review Checklist
A skill that enforces your team’s review standards on every code review request.
Database Migration Generator
Database Migration Generator
A skill that generates migration files following your ORM’s conventions.
API Endpoint Builder
API Endpoint Builder
A skill that creates REST endpoints following your team’s patterns.
Skills vs AI Agents
Tips for Effective Skills
Write descriptions as trigger conditions
Write descriptions as trigger conditions
The agent matches skills to tasks based on the description. Be explicit: “Use when the user asks to generate unit tests for React components” works better than “Testing helper.”
Use paths to narrow scope
Use paths to narrow scope
If a skill only applies to your API layer, add
paths: [src/api/**] so it doesn’t activate for frontend tasks.Include examples in your instructions
Include examples in your instructions
Show the agent what good output looks like. A “before and after” example in the instructions is worth more than a paragraph of explanation.
Version control your skills
Version control your skills
Keep skills in your repo (
.agents/skills/). They evolve with your codebase and benefit from code review like any other file.