Using Skills

Skills extend your agent's capabilities by providing pre-built integrations with external services. This guide explains how to use skills effectively in your agent workflows.

How Skills Work

When you run an agent with skills configured:

1. Download: VM0 downloads the skill from its GitHub URL
2. Mount: The skill is mounted at ~/.claude/skills/{skillName}/
3. Available: The agent can use the skill's capabilities during execution

The agent automatically discovers available skills and uses them based on your instructions and prompts.

Writing Instructions That Use Skills

Your agent instructions (AGENTS.md) should describe workflows that leverage your configured skills. The agent understands what each skill can do and will use them appropriately.

Basic Pattern

# Research Assistant

You are a research assistant that finds and summarizes information.

## Capabilities

- Use Firecrawl to scrape web pages
- Use Notion to save research notes
- Use Slack to share summaries with the team

## Workflow

1. Search for relevant sources on the topic
2. Scrape and analyze the content
3. Create a summary in Notion
4. Post highlights to #research channel in Slack

Be Specific About Actions

Tell the agent what actions to take with each skill:

# Daily News Digest

## Morning Routine

1. Fetch top stories from Hacker News
2. Scrape the top 5 articles using Firecrawl
3. Summarize key points from each article
4. Create a digest page in Notion under "Daily Digests"
5. Send the digest link to #news channel in Slack

Combining Multiple Skills

Skills work together naturally. Configure all the skills you need and describe the workflow:

version: "1.0"

agents:
  research-bot:
    framework: claude-code
    skills:
      - https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0-skills/tree/main/firecrawl
      - https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0-skills/tree/main/notion
      - https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0-skills/tree/main/slack

First, store your secrets on the platform (one-time setup):

vm0 secret set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY fc-xxx
vm0 secret set NOTION_API_KEY secret_xxx
vm0 secret set SLACK_BOT_TOKEN xoxb-xxx

Then run your agent - secrets are automatically loaded:

vm0 run research-bot "research AI agent frameworks and create a comparison"

Runtime Prompts

When running your agent, your prompt guides what the agent does with its skills:

# Simple task
vm0 run my-agent "post today's metrics to #team-updates"

# Multi-step task
vm0 run my-agent "scrape the blog post at https://example.com/post, summarize it, and save to Notion"

# Conditional workflow
vm0 run my-agent "check Linear for bugs marked critical, if any exist, alert #engineering on Slack"

Best Practices

Match Skills to Instructions

Only configure skills your agent actually needs. If your instructions mention Slack, configure the Slack skill:

skills:
  - https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0-skills/tree/main/slack

Provide Context in Instructions

Help the agent understand where and how to use each skill:

## Output Destinations

- **Quick updates**: Post to Slack #updates channel
- **Detailed reports**: Create a new page in Notion under "Reports"
- **Data exports**: Save to Google Sheets "Weekly Data" spreadsheet

Handle Credentials

Store required credentials on the platform (recommended, one-time setup):

vm0 secret set GOOGLE_SHEETS_CLIENT_ID xxx
vm0 secret set GOOGLE_SHEETS_CLIENT_SECRET xxx
vm0 secret set GOOGLE_SHEETS_REFRESH_TOKEN xxx

Then run your agent - secrets are automatically loaded:

vm0 run my-agent "sync data to sheets"

Troubleshooting

Skill Not Found

If the agent reports it cannot find a skill:

• Verify the skill URL in vm0.yaml is correct
• Check the skill exists at vm0-ai/vm0-skills

Authentication Errors

If the agent fails to authenticate with a service:

• Verify all required secrets are passed via --secrets
• Check the credential values are correct
• Review the skill's documentation for required environment variables

Skill Not Used

If the agent doesn't use a configured skill:

• Make your instructions more explicit about when to use the skill
• Mention the skill by name in your prompt
• Verify the skill is listed in your vm0.yaml

Next Steps

• Browse available skills in Agent Skills
• Learn about Instructions for detailed workflow design
• See Environment Variables for credential management