Step 7: Skills
A skill is like a specialist your agent can call in when a job needs a particular knack — a number-cruncher, a translator, a tidy-up expert. Tools let your agent reach out to other services, and knowledge gives it reference material to read, but skills give it the ability to run a piece of custom logic — transforming data, working through a multi-step process, or doing a specialized calculation — and use the result in its reply.
Why it matters
Some requests need more than a look-up or an answer pulled from a document. They need a bit of work done: reformatting a messy list, converting a file from one format to another, running a calculation that follows specific rules every time.
Skills let your agent handle exactly those jobs without you having to wire up an outside service. You add the skill once, and from then on the agent reaches for it whenever a request calls for it — for example, turning a block of text into a clean summary, or converting a spreadsheet of data into a different layout.
How it works
A skill is a self-contained package of logic that your agent can run when it needs that specific ability. When a user's request matches what a skill does, the agent runs the skill and folds the result into its response.
Skills come in three kinds, depending on where they come from:
| Type | Where it comes from | Can you remove it? |
|---|---|---|
| Native | Built into every agent. Handles common tasks with no setup. | No — native skills are always available |
| Community | Shared by the Nirvai community for anyone to install. | Yes |
| Custom | Built by you for your agent's specific needs. | Yes |
Installing a community skill
- Open your agent in the Agent Control Panel
- Go to the Skills panel
- Switch to the Community tab to browse what's available
- Use the search bar or filter by category to find what you need
- Click Install on any skill to add it to your agent
Image: The skills panel showing installed skills and the community library
Managing your installed skills
The My Skills tab lists every skill installed on the selected agent. Each one appears as a card you can click to expand:
- The collapsed view shows the skill name, a short description, its status (active or inactive), and a source badge (native, community, or custom).
- The expanded view shows the full description, the inputs the skill accepts, its source and version, an enable/disable toggle, and a remove button for community and custom skills.
Flip the enable/disable toggle to turn a skill on or off without removing it — a disabled skill stays in your list, ready to switch back on. To uninstall a community or custom skill, click Remove in its expanded view. Native skills can't be removed.
Examples
Community skills you might install
| Example skill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Data formatter | Converts data between formats (CSV, JSON, tables) |
| Calculator | Performs complex math |
| Summarizer | Condenses long text into a structured summary |
| Translator | Translates text between languages |
| Code runner | Runs code snippets and returns the result |
A summarizer in action
A customer pastes three paragraphs of feedback into the chat. Your agent recognizes that a summary would help, runs the Summarizer skill, and replies with a clean three-bullet recap instead of the wall of text.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Why it's a problem | Better approach |
|---|---|---|
| Reaching for a skill to talk to an outside service | Skills run logic on Nirvai's side — they don't sign in to your calendar or CRM | Use a tool to interact with an external service, and a skill for processing logic |
| Leaving every community skill installed "just in case" | Extra skills add clutter and can confuse which one the agent picks | Install only the skills that match what your agent actually does, and disable the rest |
| Expecting custom skills with no setup | Custom skills are written as code packages | Build them in Developer Mode, or stick to native and community skills |
Skills vs. tools at a glance
| Skills | Tools | |
|---|---|---|
| What they are | Code that runs logic | Connections to external services |
| Where they run | On Nirvai's servers | On the external service |
| What they need | A code package | Sign-in details for the service |
| Best for | Custom logic, data processing, calculations | Working with external services (calendars, CRMs, databases) |
| Created by | The community or you | You, or set up through a connector |
Creating custom skills
If you have development experience, you can build your own skills in Developer Mode. The create_skill developer command walks you through authoring a new skill. A custom skill defines its name and description (how the agent knows when to use it), the inputs it expects, the logic that runs when it's called, and any tools it uses along the way.
What's next
- Step 8: Channels — put your finished agent in front of users on WhatsApp, Slack, your website, and more.
- Developer Mode — the full workflow for building custom skills.