Using Skills

IMPORTANT

Skills are only available for http adapters. ACP agents may have skills implemented which can be accessed via the \ trigger. See Skills on ACP Adapters for more information.

Ensure that you have read the Skills Configuration section to understand how to configure skill directories and groups.

What Your LLM Sees

Adding a skill to a chat buffer shares the skill's metadata (the YAML frontmatter in SKILL.md) with the LLM:

The `lua-developer` skill is available: The Lua conventions for this project. Use when writing or reviewing Lua.
Read `/Users/Oli/.config/codecompanion/skills/lua-developer/SKILL.md` when the skill applies and follow its instructions.

By only loading the metadata, the context in the chat buffer is kept small.

To read the skill in full, CodeCompanion attaches the read_file and run_command tools to the chat. As a result, you'll need to use an LLM which has function calling capability.

Adding Skills

The /skills slash command lists every skill found in the skill directories. Multiple skills can be added at once depending on the picker you've defined in the config.

The /skills-group slash command lists your configured groups and adds all of their skills to the chat buffer.

CodeCompanion detects whether you have telescope, fzf_lua, mini_pick or snacks.nvim installed and picks one for you. Failing that, it falls back to the default provider, vim.ui.select, which is the only one that can't select more than one skill at a time.

Each command is configured separately:

lua

require("codecompanion").setup({
  interactions = {
    chat = {
      slash_commands = {
        ["skills"] = {
          opts = {
            provider = "snacks", -- Can be "default", "telescope", "fzf_lua", "mini_pick" or "snacks"
          },
        },
        ["skills-group"] = {
          opts = {
            provider = "snacks",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
})

ACP Adapters

Everything above applies to http adapters. On an ACP adapter such as Claude Code, the agent runs its own skills, so /skills and /skills-group are hidden.

Reach the agent's skills with the \ trigger instead, which lists the ACP commands the agent has discovered for itself. A skill in ~/.claude/skills is therefore available either way: through /skills when you're on an http adapter, and through \ when Claude Code is driving.

Creating a Skill

A skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md, in one of your configured skill directories:

lua-developer/
├── SKILL.md          # Required
├── REFERENCE.md      # Optional
└── scripts/          # Optional
    └── lint.sh

SKILL.md is a markdown file with a YAML frontmatter, as per the Claude Agent Skills page:

markdown

---
name: lua-developer
description: The Lua conventions for this project. Use when writing or reviewing Lua.
---

# Lua Developer

Follow these conventions when writing Lua in this project:

- Two space indent, 120 columns
- `snake_case` for functions, `PascalCase` for classes

See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md) for worked examples.

Run [scripts/lint.sh](scripts/lint.sh) before you report the work as finished.

The instructions (the main body of the skill) should contain the information the LLM needs to follow the skill. However, a vague description may mean the LLM never calls the skill.

Link to other files in the skill using paths relative to SKILL.md. The LLM is given the full path to SKILL.md, so it finds them wherever you started Neovim from.

Removing a Skill

A skill can be removed by deleting the skill's line from the Context blockquote in the chat buffer.

Using Skills ​

What Your LLM Sees ​

Adding Skills ​

ACP Adapters ​

Creating a Skill ​

Removing a Skill ​