Skills
Skills teach agents how to use your tools. You declare them under skills in the capabilities file, then run capa install (or capa add) so capa materializes skill folders for each provider.
Skill types
Section titled “Skill types”| Type | What you provide |
|---|---|
inline | def.content — SKILL.md body in the file |
remote | def.url to a SKILL.md |
github / gitlab | def.repo with @ or :: grammar |
local | def.path to a directory that contains SKILL.md (re-read each install) |
installed | Already present elsewhere; capa only records it for tool binding (edit YAML directly) |
plugin | Skill shipped by a configured plugin; capa does not fetch it again |
Add from the CLI
Section titled “Add from the CLI”# GitHub search by basenamecapa add owner/repo@skill-name
# Exact pathcapa add owner/repo::skills/path/to/skill-name
# GitLab (prefix)capa add gitlab:group/repo@skill-name
# Pin tag/branch or commitcapa add owner/repo@skill:v1.2.0capa add owner/repo::skills/x/y#abc1234
# Remote URL or local directorycapa add https://example.com/path/to/SKILL.mdcapa add ./path/to/skill
# Registrycapa add skills-sh:vercel-labs/skills/find-skills@ vs :: in def.repo
Section titled “@ vs :: in def.repo”| Form | Resolution |
|---|---|
owner/repo@basename | Recursive search for a directory whose basename matches (must contain SKILL.md). Basename has no slashes. |
owner/repo::exact/path | Exact path from the repo root to the skill directory |
Pinning works on both: :tag / :branch or #sha.
skills: - id: find-skills type: github def: repo: vercel-labs/skills@find-skills requires: - '@brave.search'
- id: team-review type: github def: repo: acme/agent-kit::skills/code-review:v1.0.0 requires: - '@gitlab.list_merge_requests'Bind tools with requires
Section titled “Bind tools with requires”List the tools the skill needs. MCP tools use @server.tool; command tools use the plain tool id.
def: requires: - '@brave.search' - deploy_serviceUnder on-demand tool exposure, skills without requires get no tools activated. Prefer setting requires on every skill you care about.