Your First Skill
Your assistant comes with a bunch of built-in capabilities. But the real magic? Teaching it new ones.
Skills are how your assistant learns to do things. Think of them as plugins, but less boring.
What's a skill?
A skill is a bundle of instructions and tools that gives your assistant a new capability. Some examples:
- The Weather skill lets it check forecasts for any location
- The Email skill lets it read, write, and manage email
- The DoorDash skill lets it order food (yes, actual food, delivered to your actual door)
- The Image Studio skill lets it generate and edit images with AI
Skills can be simple (a single tool) or complex (multiple tools, configuration, and custom logic). Your assistant loads them on demand, so they don't slow anything down when they're not being used.
Skills you already have
Your assistant comes with 25+ built-in skills. Here are the most important ones:
| Skill | What it does | Setup |
|---|---|---|
| Email (AgentMail) | Send, read, search, and manage email from your assistant's own address | One-time email setup |
| Gmail | Read and send through your personal Gmail account | Google auth |
| Slack | Read, send, and manage Slack messages and channels | Slack auth |
| Messaging | Cross-platform messaging (Telegram, etc.) | None |
| Phone Calls | Make and receive voice calls via Twilio | Twilio credentials |
| Google Calendar | View, create, and manage calendar events | Google auth |
| Schedule | Set reminders and recurring cron-based actions | None |
| Tasks | Track to-dos and work items | None |
| Contacts | Store and recall information about people | None |
| Weather | Current conditions and multi-day forecasts | None |
| Computer Use | Control your Mac — click, type, scroll, read the screen | Accessibility permission |
| Screen Watch | Periodically monitor your screen for changes | Screen Recording permission |
| Notifications | Get proactive alerts across channels | None |
| Document | Read and work with uploaded documents | None |
| Image Studio | Generate and edit images using AI models | None |
| Browser | Navigate web pages, click things, extract content | None |
| App Builder | Create interactive HTML/CSS/JS apps on the fly | None |
| Claude Code | Delegate coding tasks to an AI coding agent | None |
| DoorDash | Order food, groceries, and convenience items | DoorDash CLI credentials |
| Skill Management | Create custom skills or install community ones | None |
Most skills require no setup at all — just ask your assistant to do something and it'll load the right skill automatically. A few (like Email, DoorDash, and Phone Calls) need a one-time configuration step; your assistant will walk you through it.
Also available for install: Some skills like Start the Day (personalized daily briefing) and Weather (loaded from the skill catalog on demand) are portable skills you can install from the community registry. The experience is the same — just ask and it works.
Try it: Use the Weather skill
Let's start simple. Type this:
"What's the weather like in New York this week?"
Your assistant will:
- Load the Weather skill (automatically, behind the scenes)
- Fetch the forecast
- Show you a visual weather card with temperatures, conditions, and a multi-day outlook
You didn't configure an API key. You didn't enable a plugin. You just asked a question and got an answer. That's how skills are supposed to work.
Try it: Use the Email skill
This one requires a tiny bit of setup (your assistant needs its own email address), but it's worth it.
"Set up your email."
Your assistant will walk you through connecting to its email service. Once that's done:
"Check my email."
"Draft an email to john@example.com about the meeting tomorrow."
"Summarize the last 5 emails I got."
Your assistant reads and sends email from its own address, not yours. When someone receives an email from your assistant, they know it's from your assistant. Clear boundaries.
Installing new skills
Beyond the built-in skills, you can install community skills from the skills.sh registry. Just ask:
"What skills can I install?"
"Search for a Notion skill."
Your assistant will search the community registry and show you what's available. To install one:
"Install the [skill name] skill."
Installed skills are saved to ~/.vellum/workspace/skills/ and loaded on demand, just like built-in ones. Install what you need, ignore what you don't.
Building your own skills (for the adventurous)
If you're technically inclined, you can build custom skills from scratch. Your assistant can even help you write them.
"I want to build a custom skill that checks Hacker News for the top stories every morning."
Your assistant will scaffold the skill, test it in a sandbox, and (with your permission) save it to ~/.vellum/workspace/skills/. Each custom skill is a small folder with a few key files:
SKILL.md— frontmatter (name, description, triggers) plus natural-language instructions for your assistantTOOLS.json— tool definitions the skill exposes (optional)scripts/— executable code the tools call (optional)
This is a deeper topic. If you're curious, check out Skills & Tools in the Key Concepts section.
What just happened?
You used a skill without configuring it, saw your assistant load tools on demand, and maybe even set up email. That's the pattern:
- You ask for something.
- Your assistant figures out which skill to use.
- It loads the skill and does the thing.
- You see the result.
No menus. No dashboards full of toggles. No “please configure your integration before proceeding.” Just ask and watch it work. That's the inviting principle: things show up when they're relevant, not before.
Next up: Key Concepts — how it all fits together under the hood. Or just keep talking to your assistant. It doesn't mind.