Administer
Skill library
On this page
What the library holds
Each organization has one library of skills. Members publish their own, and Valet supplies built-in and catalog skills beside them. A skill is a service, like a website, an app or an agent: it shares one set of names with them, has an author and a star, and every change to it creates a new release. To write and publish a skill, see Skills.
Built-in
- What it is
- Valet's governance skills, such as
governance,security, anddependencies. Attach one without a copy to hold Valet's default.
Catalog
- What it is
- Skills Valet curates, such as
deep-researchandweekly-report. Install one as a copy, or attach it ascatalog:<name>.
Your organization
- What it is
- Skills your members write or adapt. Attach one as
org:<name>.
The agent's folder
- What it is
- A
skills/<name>/directory committed with one agent. It's already part of that agent.
Built-in skills answer coding agents until your organization publishes its own skill under the same name. They aren't services, so a hosted agent that attaches one holds Valet's default, and moves to your organization's copy once you publish it. No website, app or agent can take a built-in's name. See Replace a built-in skill.
A skill in an agent's own folder ships with every release of that agent. You change it only by changing the agent's source.
valet skills catalog lists the catalog.
How skills reach agents
Coding agents discover skills through Valet's MCP server or the CLI
with the valet skill. No attachment is needed. Hosted agents carry
only the skills attached to them. See Governance
for how agents choose which skills to read.
How changes reach agents
Coding agents get the latest release on their next read unless they request an earlier one. Hosted agents receive updates through new agent releases, as described below.
Releases
Every publish that changes a skill's content creates a new release,
numbered v1, v2, and so on. Publishing identical content creates none.
Releases never change once they exist. The skill page and list_releases
list them, and get_skill with release reads any one. To go back to an
earlier release, read it and publish its files again, which makes a new
release.
A hosted agent always carries the skill's latest release. There are no
pins: attaching org:data-storage@v2 attaches the latest release, and
Valet says it ignored the pin. When someone publishes a new release,
Valet builds a new agent release for each agent that holds the skill,
after a few minutes' delay. The agent uses it the next time it starts;
Valet doesn't restart a running agent to deliver it. Renaming a skill
reaches agents the same way. To keep a hosted agent's instructions fixed,
commit them to the agent's own skills folder.
Attachments
Members attach skills with the attach_skill MCP tool,
valet skills attach, or the Skills section of an agent's Blueprint in
the dashboard.
Attaching or detaching a skill rebuilds a running agent and redeploys
it so the change takes effect. Skills attach to agents only; artifacts
and apps don't carry skills.
Valet enforces these rules:
- Names are unique per agent. An attached skill can't share a name with another attached skill or with a skill in the agent's folder.
- Deploys check attached skills, not hints. A deploy stops when an
attached skill has no release or shares a name with a skill in the
agent's folder. A skill that
valet.yamllists but the agent doesn't hold shows in the Blueprint as a suggestion and blocks nothing. - Agents can't rewrite attached skills. An agent that edits its own instructions can change the skills in its folder, but not the ones attached from the library. Those belong to the library and come back unchanged with each release.
- An attached skill can't be destroyed. Valet refuses to destroy a skill while a hosted agent has it attached, and names the agents.
Where skill content lives
Each organization skill is a Git repository in Valet's own storage,
like an artifact, app or agent. Its main branch holds the latest
release, and each release is a commit and a list of the commit's files.
A deploy never fetches a skill from an outside host, so a deleted
repository can't break a release. In a dedicated installation, the
repositories stay inside it.
A catalog skill is a template. Installing one copies its files into a skill your organization owns, which then changes only when you publish.
Manage the library
List skills
- MCP tool
list_skills,list_services- CLI
valet skills --org <org>- Dashboard
- Skills and Governance
Read one
- MCP tool
get_skill- CLI
valet skills show <name>- Dashboard
- The skill's page
See which agents use it
- MCP tool
get_service- CLI
valet skills info <name>- Dashboard
- The skill's page
See its releases
- MCP tool
list_releases- CLI
valet skills show --release- Dashboard
- The skill's page
Create one
- MCP tool
create_servicewithkind: skill- CLI
valet skills create- Dashboard
- Add skill, Write a custom skill
Publish a release
- MCP tool
publish_skillwithfilesorpush- CLI
valet skills publish- Dashboard
- none
Change some files
- MCP tool
publish_skillwithedits- CLI
- none
- Dashboard
- Edit on the skill's page
Rename one
- MCP tool
rename_service- CLI
valet skills rename- Dashboard
- none
Clone the latest release
- MCP tool
get_skillwithgit- CLI
valet skills clone- Dashboard
- none
Destroy one
- MCP tool
destroy_service- CLI
valet skills destroy- Dashboard
- The skill's page
The Standards tab of the dashboard's Governance page shows the skills that govern coding agents, and the Skills page shows the rest of the library. The launcher lists skills too. To write a standard for coding agents to follow, see Write your own standards.
Ownership and history
Valet records who created a skill and who published its latest release.
The skill's page and list_services show that author. Each release is a
Git commit that records when it was saved. Skills created before author
tracking show no author until someone publishes them again. Valet has
no audit log of skill changes. See Organizations.
Next steps
- Skills: write and publish a skill.
- Governance: manage the standards coding agents follow.