Skills

Skills are a lightweight way to keep the base prompt small while still enabling targeted workflows.

How It Works

1. The runtime injects an <available_skills> list into the prompt (only when skills are eligible).
2. If the model decides it needs one, it calls read to load that skill's SKILL.md from the listed location.
3. The model then executes the workflow using sandbox tools (read, edit, write, exec, process).
4. If no skills are eligible, the Skills section is omitted.

<available_skills>
  <skill>
    <name>...</name>
    <description>...</description>
    <location>...</location>
  </skill>
</available_skills>

# Read skill instructions first
+read(path: string): string

# Then execute skill steps in sandbox
+edit(path: string, diff: string): string
+write(path: string, content: string): string
+exec(code: string): string
+process(command: string, args: string[]): string

Weather Skill Example

OpenClaw weather example:

• https://clawhub.ai/steipete/weather

In practice:

• The model sees the weather skill in <available_skills>.
• It uses read on the skill path.
• It follows the instructions and uses sandbox/tool calls to complete the task.