Skills

Teach DarcyIQ reusable expertise that persists across conversations. Skills are instruction sets — written in markdown — that tell the AI how to perform a specific task, follow a process, or apply domain knowledge. Create them yourself, ask Darcy to build one in chat, or import them using the open agentskills.io standard.

Example: Save a "Client Proposal Writer" skill with your company's formatting rules, pricing structure, and tone guidelines. Every future conversation can load that skill instantly — no re-explaining required.

Why Skills?

Skills solve a common problem with AI assistants: repeating the same instructions across conversations. Instead of re-typing how you want proposals formatted, how your deployment pipeline works, or what your company's naming conventions are, you save those instructions once as a skill and DarcyIQ loads them on demand.

Feature	Description
Persistent	Saved to your account and available across all conversations
On-Demand	Loaded only when needed, keeping conversations fast and focused
Versioned	Every edit increments the version so you can track changes
Toggleable	Enable or disable skills without deleting them
Import / Export	Share skills using standard SKILL.md files compatible with agentskills.io

Creating Skills

From the Skills Panel

1

Open the Skills Panel Click the Skills icon (lightbulb) in the sidebar to open the Skills drawer.

2

Click "New" Click the New button in the top-right corner of the panel.

3

Fill in the Details

Field	Description	Limits
Name	A descriptive name (auto-converted to a URL-safe slug)	2–64 chars
Description	Brief summary of what the skill does	Up to 500 chars
Skill Body	The full instructions in markdown — this is what the AI reads	Up to 15,000 chars

4

Save Click Create to save. The skill is immediately available in all conversations.

In Chat

Ask DarcyIQ to create a skill directly in conversation:

• "Create a skill called meeting-summary that formats meeting notes with attendees, action items, and next steps."

• "Save what we just discussed as a skill I can reuse."

• "Make a skill for writing customer onboarding emails in our company's tone."

DarcyIQ saves the skill to your account automatically. You can view and manage it from the Skills panel afterwards.

Import a SKILL.md File

If you have a skill file from another user or from the agentskills.io community:

1. Open the Skills Panel

2. Click Import

3. Select a .md file in the SKILL.md format

4. Review the imported name, description, and body

5. Click Create to save

DarcyIQ follows the open agentskills.io standard, so any SKILL.md file that uses YAML frontmatter with name and description fields followed by a markdown body is compatible.

Managing Skills

Skills Panel

Action	How
View all	Open the Skills panel from the sidebar
Edit	Click any skill to open the editor
Enable/Disable	Toggle the switch next to any skill
Export	Click the download icon to get a SKILL.md file
Delete	Click the trash icon (permanent — cannot be undone)
Import	Click Import and select a SKILL.md file

In Chat

You can also ask DarcyIQ to manage skills conversationally:

• "Update my deploy-checklist skill with these new steps..."

• "In my deploy-checklist skill, change 'staging' to 'pre-prod'"

• "Delete the old-template skill"

• "What skills do I have?"

Disabling vs. Deleting: Use the toggle switch to temporarily disable a skill without losing it. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

Using Skills in Conversations

DarcyIQ is automatically aware of your active skills at the start of every conversation. You don't need to list or reference them — DarcyIQ already knows what's available.

To use a skill, simply ask:

• "Use my client-proposal-writer skill to draft a proposal for Acme Corp."

• "Follow my meeting-summary skill to format these notes."

DarcyIQ may also load a relevant skill on its own when it recognizes your request matches one.

Chat Quick-Toggle

The chat input area includes a skills toggle where you can enable or disable specific skills before sending a message — no need to open the full Skills panel.

Integration with Agents

Skills work alongside Agents. When you chat with an agent that has its own custom instructions, your skills layer additional expertise on top of the agent's configuration. Skills are also available during scheduled agent runs.

Use Cases

Category	Examples
Process & Templates	Proposal formatting, meeting note structure, code review checklists
Domain Knowledge	Product specs, compliance rules, client account context
Workflow Automation	Deployment checklists, incident response procedures, onboarding steps
Communication	Email templates, tone guidelines, client-specific language preferences

Best Practices

1. Be specific: "Format prices as USD with two decimal places" beats "Format prices correctly"

2. Use structure: Break instructions into sections with headers and lists

3. Include examples: Show what good output looks like

4. Keep it focused: One skill per task or domain — don't combine unrelated instructions

5. Start small: Begin with one or two high-value skills for the processes you explain most often, then expand from there

Pro Tip: If you find yourself repeating the same instructions across multiple conversations, that's a great candidate for a skill.