Skills

Skills are reusable knowledge that make agents smarter. They contain domain expertise, coding conventions, review checklists, or any instructions you want agents to follow consistently.

When you chat with Themis, it automatically loads all skills available to you — no need to reference them manually.

Browsing Skills

Go to Skills in the sidebar to see all skills available in your space. You can filter by:

  • Enabled / Disabled — Active skills vs. deactivated ones
  • Mine — Your personal skills
  • Space — Shared with all space members
  • System — Available across all spaces (created by admins)

Each skill shows its name, scope, description, creator, and last updated date. Click any skill to view its full content and attached files.

Using Skills in Chat

You don’t need to do anything special — agents automatically discover and apply relevant skills during conversations. For example, if your space has a “code-review-checklist” skill, the agent will follow it when reviewing PRs.

Slash-Command Palette

To invoke a specific skill explicitly, type / at the start of an empty input or new line in the chat composer. A palette opens listing every skill available to you in the current space, with its description and example prompts.

  • Filter by typing more characters (e.g. /code).
  • Arrow keys to navigate, Enter or Tab to insert /<skill-name> into the message.
  • Items are deduplicated using the same priority Themis applies when loading skills: personal > space > system. If you and your space both have a skill named summary, the palette shows (and inserts) the personal one.

The palette is hidden on phones because the soft keyboard’s autocomplete already covers the same need.

Example Prompts

Each skill can carry up to 10 example prompts (200 characters each). They surface in the slash-command palette so users can see what the skill is good at without opening it.

Add examples in the Examples field of the skill form, or via chat ("Add an example prompt to my deployment-checklist: 'Walk me through deploying the payments service'"). They’re stored alongside the skill and updated through the same version history.

Good examples are concrete prompts a user would actually type — not abstract descriptions:

  • ✅ “Walk me through deploying the payments service”
  • ❌ “A deployment guide”

You can also ask the agent to manage your personal skills directly in chat:

  • “Create a skill called deployment-checklist with these steps…“ — Creates a personal skill with your instructions
  • “Update my deployment-checklist skill to include database migration steps” — Replaces SKILL.md content
  • “Change version to v0.2 in deployment-checklist” — Fast find-and-replace edit without rewriting the full file
  • “List my skills” — Shows all your personal skills with links

Managing Skill Files in Chat

Skills can contain multiple files beyond SKILL.md — templates, scripts, reference docs, config files. You can manage all of them through chat:

  • “List files in my deployment-checklist” — Shows all files with paths, sizes, and whether they’re editable
  • “Add a file references/api.md to my deployment-checklist with this content…“ — Creates a new file in the skill
  • “Change the color from #333 to #1a1a1a in template.html in my deployment-checklist” — Edits any text file (HTML, CSS, Python, JS, YAML, etc.) using find-and-replace
  • “Delete old-notes.md from my deployment-checklist” — Removes a file (SKILL.md cannot be deleted)

Skills created via chat are always personal scope. Use the Skills UI to create space or system skills.

Creating a Skill via UI

  1. Go to Skills and click New
  2. Fill in:
    • Name — Lowercase with hyphens (e.g., api-design-guidelines)
    • Description — Helps agents decide when this skill is relevant
    • Examples — Up to 10 short example prompts (200 chars each) shown in the slash-command palette
    • SKILL.md — The main instructions in Markdown
    • Files — Optionally upload a folder with supplementary docs
  3. Choose a scope:
    • Personal — Only available to you
    • Space — Shared with all space members (managers and owners)
    • System — Available across all spaces (admins only)
  4. Save — The skill is immediately available to agents

Collaborative Editing (Checkout / Checkin)

Space and system skills are shared resources. To prevent conflicting edits, Themis uses a checkout/checkin workflow — one editor at a time.

How it works

  1. Checkout — Click Checkout on a space or system skill. This locks it (preventing others from editing) and creates a personal copy for you to work on.
  2. Edit — Make changes to your personal copy, either via the UI or through chat. Your personal copy automatically shadows the original version, so agents use your version during testing.
  3. Checkin — When satisfied, click Checkin on the original skill. You’ll see a diff preview of your changes. Confirm to replace the shared skill with your version.
  4. Discard — Changed your mind? Click Discard to delete your personal copy and unlock the skill without changes.

Who can checkout

  • Space skills — Only managers and owners can checkout. Regular members can view but not lock skills for editing.
  • System skills — Only admins can checkout. System skills are shared across all spaces, so editing requires admin privileges.

Force unlock

If someone’s checkout goes stale, managers can Force Unlock space skills and admins can Force Unlock system skills to discard the checkout and free the skill for others. A cleanup job also automatically expires locks older than 7 days.

Chat tools

You can also manage checkouts via chat:

  • “Checkout the code-review-checklist skill” — Locks and creates your personal copy
  • “Check in my code-review-checklist changes” — Applies your edits to the shared skill
  • “Discard my checkout of code-review-checklist” — Unlocks without changes
  • “Change version to v0.2 in my code-review-checklist” — Fast find-and-replace edit (avoids rewriting the full file)

Version History

Every change to a skill is tracked and visible on the skill detail page. The Version History section shows:

  • Who made the change and when
  • Source — whether the change came from the web UI, chat, or a checkin
  • What changed — badges for each modified field (description, SKILL.md, etc.)
  • Diff preview — click “Show changes” to see a side-by-side before/after comparison

Version history is an audit log — it helps you understand how a skill evolved over time. Note: only metadata and SKILL.md content changes are tracked; changes to other attached files are not included in the version history.

Enable / Disable

Toggle skills on or off from the skills table without deleting them. Disabled skills are not loaded by agents.

Examples

Good candidates for skills:

  • Coding conventions — Language-specific style guides and patterns
  • Review checklists — Security checks, performance considerations, accessibility requirements
  • Domain knowledge — Business rules, API documentation, system architecture
  • Workflow instructions — How to triage bugs, write user stories, or structure reports