Shared agent skills

Create reusable methods once and control their use by the built-in agent and connected agents.

Shared agent skills

A skill describes how to do a repeatable task, such as preparing meeting notes or handing off a ticket. Each vault has one shared library. The built-in agent and connected agents can use the same instructions.

Create a skill

Open Agents → Skills in Nexus web. In the desktop release that includes the library, open Agents → Skills….

1. Choose New skill.
2. Give it a short Name and a specific When to use description.
3. Write the Instructions: the steps, expected output, and checks that make the task successful.
4. Choose whether to enable it and make it available to connected agents, then save.

New skills start disabled and unshared. Editors and owners can create and edit skills; viewers can read them. A skill is a normal versioned Markdown document under skills/, so its instructions remain part of your vault.

Choose who can use it

Enabled for the built-in agent allows the built-in page, board and Thinking agent to select the skill when its description matches the request. It can select up to three relevant skills for a request. The shared host needs the desktop update that includes shared skills; enabling a skill does not update the host software.

Available to connected agents when enabled also exposes that skill through the Nexus connection. The connected agent must already have permission to read the skill document. Both switches must be on for connected-agent skill discovery.

Turning sharing off removes a skill from skill discovery. It does not revoke ordinary document access a connection already has. To remove that access, change the connection’s permissions.

Skills provide guidance. They cannot grant access, add tools, bypass approvals, or schedule recurring work. Support knowledge policies, Slack channel permissions, and executable workflow actions keep their separate controls.

Use a skill from a connected agent

Ask the agent to list the skills available in the selected vault and use the relevant one. Compatible agents can discover them through skill.list, then read selected instructions using skill.read with the document ID and vault ID. No manual download or attachment is required.

If an already connected app caches its tool catalog, refresh its tools or start a new chat. You do not need to reconnect every vault just to discover new tools. Each agent app decides when it loads and follows guidance.

The included Nexus Task Board and Ticket Delivery guides remain public product guidance. They are separate from your editable vault instructions and do not expose private skills.

Keep skills focused

Use a concrete description such as “When preparing meeting notes from a transcript,” and keep the instructions specific to that task. Each skill supports up to 16 KiB. The built-in agent currently supports up to 50 documents in the skills/ library; a larger library reports a limit instead of silently using only part of it.

If saving reports a conflict, your draft stays in the editor. Refresh and compare the current document before retrying.

For connection setup, see Connect your agent.