What are skills
What are skills
Skills are self-contained bundles of instructions and logic that extend what your agent can do.
When the agent recognises a trigger phrase in a conversation it can invoke the matching skill, running its predefined behaviour rather than generating a freeform response.
How skills work
A skill is a directory on the agent’s host machine. The directory contains a manifest file and one or more content files (typically Markdown or plain text). When the agent processes a message it checks the active skill list for matching trigger phrases. If a match is found, the skill’s content is injected into the agent’s context and the agent follows the skill’s instructions.
Skills do not execute arbitrary code by default. They are prompt-based: the skill content tells the agent how to respond to a particular class of request. Some skills may reference external tools or MCP servers if the agent supports tool use.
Skill origins
The Skills page groups skills by origin:
- Built-in — skills shipped with the agent or pre-installed in the default skills directory.
- Agent-created — skills the agent generated during a session and saved to disk.
- Marketplace — skills installed from the Skills Hub.
The origin label appears in the detail drawer when you select a skill.
Security levels
Each skill carries a security risk score computed from its content. The detail drawer shows the risk level (safe, low, medium, or high) and a list of flags that contributed to the score. Review the security level before enabling skills from untrusted sources.
Where skills live on disk
Skills are stored as directories under the agent’s skills path. The exact location depends on your agent installation. Common locations:
~/.hermes/skills/— user-level skills- A
skills/subdirectory inside the agent installation directory
The workspace-skills view (accessible from the Skills page) also shows skills available to the current workspace, with their full path displayed in the card.