Skills System Overview

A Skill is Nexent's way of extending an agent's capabilities. Each skill consists of:

• Skill description: What this skill does and when to use it
• Tool bundle: A package of one or more Nexent SDK methods or user-defined tools
• Parameter template: Which parameters users can fill in for this skill
• Usage examples: How this skill is typically used

Compared to selecting tools one by one, skills make configuring complex capabilities simple — install one skill package instead of configuring each tool separately.

Skill Package Structure

A skill can be a single SKILL.md file or a ZIP package with multiple files:

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md              # Skill definition file (required)
├── config/
│   ├── config.yaml       # Default parameter values (optional)
│   └── schema.yaml        # Parameter types and descriptions (optional)
├── scripts/
│   └── *.py               # Python scripts (optional)
├── examples.md            # Usage examples (optional)
└── assets/                # Static assets (optional)

SKILL.md Structure

Each skill must have a SKILL.md file, consisting of two parts:

Part 1: YAML Frontmatter (required)

---
name: skill-name
description: |
  A description of what this skill does and when to use it.
  Write in third person, e.g., "This skill is used for..."
tags:
  - tag1
  - tag2
---

Part 2: Skill Body

Below the frontmatter, you can write Markdown content including:

• Detailed usage instructions and guidelines
• Example code for tool invocation
• Error handling instructions
• Usage limits and caveats

Two Skill Types

Skills fall into two categories based on their purpose:

Tool Skills: Used to expose the capabilities of one or more Nexent SDK methods. The body should include tool parameter descriptions, usage examples, return formats, and error handling. Once the user configures the parameters, the agent can call these tools directly.

Agent Skills: Used to teach an agent how to perform a complex task. The body should include workflow instructions, domain knowledge, best practices, and sometimes helper scripts. The body will contain detailed step-by-step guidance.

Official Skills Overview

File Operations

Skill Name	Description
read-file	Read file content and metadata within the workspace
create-file-directory	Create files or directories
delete-file-directory	Delete files or directories
move-file-directory	Move or rename files/directories
list-directory	List directory structure in a tree view

Knowledge Base Search

Skill Name	Description
search-knowledge-base	Local knowledge base semantic search (supports hybrid / accurate / semantic modes)
search-dify	Dify knowledge base search
search-idata	iData knowledge base search
search-datamate	DataMate knowledge base search (with similarity threshold control)

Web Search

Skill Name	Description
search-web-tavily	Tavily real-time web search
search-web-linkup	Linkup image and text mixed search
search-web-exa	Exa deep web search

Multimodal Analysis

Skill Name	Description
analyze-image	VLM-based image content analysis and Q&A
analyze-text-file	PDF/Word/Excel file content extraction and Q&A

Communication and Remote Operations

Skill Name	Description
email-utils	IMAP receive / SMTP send (supports HTML / CC / BCC)
run-shell-ssh	Persistent SSH session for remote command execution

Skill Lifecycle

Version Management

Each skill supports two version states:

• Draft version (version=0): Development and debugging stage, changes take effect immediately, suitable for iterative adjustments
• Published version (version>=1): Production use, parameters locked to prevent accidental changes

Skill Instances

The same skill can be configured with different parameter values for different agents, independently.

For example, a search skill can be configured for a "Technical Documentation Agent" to search only the technical knowledge base, and for a "Customer Service Agent" to search only the customer service knowledge base.

Common Workflow

Create skill → Configure parameters → Select skill for agent → Debug → Publish
                       ↓
              Edit draft version

Security Notes

• Path isolation: Files within a skill package can only be accessed within the skill directory scope
• Parameter validation: Parameters defined in schema.yaml are validated by the frontend form
• Permission control: Skill instances are tenant-isolated; APIs require authentication tokens

Related References

• Skill Management (User Guide)
• Agent Development Guide
• Local Tools Overview