Skills

A skill is a named, executable capability of an agent. Skills are the primary unit of work in aide.sh.

Script-based skills

The most common type. A skill backed by a shell script:

[skills.hello]
script = "skills/hello.sh"
description = "Greet someone"
usage = "hello [name]"

The script receives positional arguments via $1, $2, etc:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# skills/hello.sh
NAME="${1:-world}"
echo "Hello, $NAME!"

$ aide.sh exec bot hello Alice
Hello, Alice!

Prompt-based skills

A skill backed by a markdown prompt file, interpreted by an LLM at runtime:

[skills.summarize]
prompt = "skills/summarize.md"
description = "Summarize text using an LLM"
usage = "summarize <text>"

<!-- skills/summarize.md -->
Summarize the following text in 3 bullet points:

{{input}}

Prompt skills always require an LLM. They are skipped if no LLM is configured.

Execution model

When aide.sh exec <instance> <skill> [args] runs:

  1. The instance working directory is set to the instance root (~/.aide/instances/<name>/)
  2. Environment variables are injected in order: vault -> agent env -> skill env
  3. The script runs as a subprocess with the scoped environment
  4. stdout/stderr are captured and returned to the caller
  5. Exit code is preserved (0 = success)

Adding description and usage

The description and usage fields appear when listing skills:

$ aide.sh exec bot
Available skills:
  cool       NTU COOL LMS scanning (courses, assignments, grades)
             Usage: cool [courses|assignments|grades|todos|summary|scan]
  email      Email triage (POP3/SMTP)
             Usage: email [check|unread|read N|search Q|send TO SUBJ BODY]
  chrome     Chrome browser automation
             Usage: chrome [open|screenshot|scrape URL]

Example: skill with argument parsing

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# skills/cool.sh
set -euo pipefail

CMD="${1:-help}"

case "$CMD" in
  courses)
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTU_COOL_TOKEN" \
      "https://cool.ntu.edu.tw/api/v1/courses" | jq '.[].name'
    ;;
  assignments)
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTU_COOL_TOKEN" \
      "https://cool.ntu.edu.tw/api/v1/courses/${2}/assignments" | jq '.[]'
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: cool [courses|assignments COURSE_ID|grades|todos|summary|scan]"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

Scheduled skills

Add a schedule field with a cron expression to run a skill periodically:

[skills.cool]
script = "skills/cool.sh"
schedule = "0 8 * * *"    # daily at 8 AM

Scheduled skills require the daemon (aide.sh up). See Cron & Scheduling.