Skills

Skills are reusable instruction sets that extend the agent's capabilities. Each skill is a SKILL.md file in its own directory, providing specialized knowledge, workflows, and tool integrations for specific tasks.

Skill Hub

Browse, search, and install skills from Cow Skill Hub.

Open source: github.com/zhayujie/cow-skill-hub

Install Skills

Install skills from multiple sources via chat (/skill) or terminal (cow skill):

bash

/skill install <name>                   # From Skill Hub
/skill install <owner>/<repo>           # From GitHub
/skill install clawhub:<name>           # From ClawHub
/skill install linkai:<code>            # From LinkAI
/skill install <url>                    # From URL (zip or SKILL.md)

List all available remote skills:

bash

/skill list --remote

Manage Skills

bash

/skill list                  # List installed skills
/skill info <name>           # View skill details
/skill enable <name>         # Enable a skill
/skill disable <name>        # Disable a skill
/skill uninstall <name>      # Uninstall a skill

In terminal, replace /skill with cow skill.

Skill Structure

skills/
  my-skill/
    SKILL.md          # Required: skill definition
    scripts/          # Optional: bundled scripts
    resources/        # Optional: reference files

SKILL.md uses YAML frontmatter:

markdown

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description of what the skill does
metadata: {"cow":{"emoji":"🔧","requires":{"bins":["tool"],"env":["API_KEY"]}}}
---

# My Skill

Instructions, examples, and usage patterns...

Frontmatter Fields

Field	Description
`name`	Skill name (must match directory name)
`description`	Brief description (required)
`metadata.cow.emoji`	Display emoji
`metadata.cow.always`	Always include this skill (default: false)
`metadata.cow.requires.bins`	Required binaries
`metadata.cow.requires.env`	Required environment variables
`metadata.cow.requires.config`	Required config paths
`metadata.cow.os`	Supported OS (e.g., `["darwin", "linux"]`)

Skill Loading Order

Skills are loaded from two locations (higher precedence overrides lower):

Builtin skills (lower): <project_root>/skills/ — shipped with the codebase
Custom skills (higher): ~/cow/skills/ — installed via cow skill install or skill creator

Skills with the same name in the custom directory override builtin ones.

Create & Contribute

See the Skill Creation docs for details, or submit your skill to Skill Hub.