Skills

A skill is a focused workflow guide that you activate with a slash command. When active, it injects domain-specific instructions into the agent's system prompt, steering it toward a structured process for a particular type of task.

Use a skill when a generic prompt would produce mediocre results — skills make the agent follow a proven, structured approach.

Built-in Skills

ByteMind ships with five built-in skills:

/bug-investigation

Structured bug diagnosis with evidence gathering before any fix is proposed.

/bug-investigation
/bug-investigation symptom="checkout page returns 403 for logged-in users"

What it produces:

• Symptom summary
• Reproduction steps
• Evidence (logs, call chain, code location)
• Root cause hypothesis with confidence level
• Minimal fix proposal and verification plan

/review

Code review focused on correctness, regression risk, and test coverage gaps.

/review
/review base_ref=main

What it produces:

• Correctness issues and logic errors
• Regression risk assessment
• Missing test coverage
• Suggestions ranked by severity

/github-pr

Analyzes PR diffs, review feedback, and merge risk.

/github-pr
/github-pr pr_number=42
/github-pr pr_number=42 base_ref=main

/repo-onboarding

Builds a quick understanding of a repository — structure, entry points, and run flow.

/repo-onboarding

Ideal when you're new to a codebase and want a guided orientation before starting work.

/write-rfc

Produces a structured technical proposal with problem statement, alternatives, tradeoffs, and rollout plan.

/write-rfc
/write-rfc path=docs/rfc/feature-x.md

Skill Scopes

Skills can come from three sources, applied in precedence order:

Scope	Location	Use case
builtin	Shipped with ByteMind	General-purpose workflows
user	~/.bytemind/skills/	Personal workflows across all projects
project	.bytemind/skills/	Team workflows for a specific repository

Project skills override user skills, which override builtins with the same name.

Creating Custom Skills

Use the built-in skill creator to scaffold a new skill:

/skill-creator

Or create one manually. A skill requires two files in a named directory:

skill.json — manifest:

{
  "name": "my-skill",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "title": "My Custom Skill",
  "description": "What this skill does.",
  "entry": { "slash": "/my-skill" },
  "tools": {
    "policy": "allowlist",
    "items": ["list_files", "read_file", "search_text"]
  }
}

SKILL.md — the instructions injected into the agent:

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description for the skill catalog.
---

# my-skill

## Workflow

1. Step one
2. Step two
3. Step three

## Output Contract

- Expected output A
- Expected output B

Tool policy options:

Policy	Behavior
inherit	Use the session's default tool set
allowlist	Only the listed tools are available
denylist	All tools except the listed ones are available

Placing Custom Skills

For a project — put the skill directory in .bytemind/skills/:

.bytemind/
  skills/
    my-skill/
      skill.json
      SKILL.md

For personal use across all projects — put it in ~/.bytemind/skills/:

~/.bytemind/
  skills/
    my-skill/
      skill.json
      SKILL.md

See Also

• Core Concepts — skills overview
• Chat Mode — how to use skills in a session