> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vistazo.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Skills

> Written procedures the agent follows, so you stop re-explaining them.

A skill is a markdown document your workspace writes for the agent. How your team names things, what a
"quarter" means here, the recipe for the report you rebuild every month, which source to trust when two
disagree.

It is standing instruction rather than a one-off prompt. Write it once and the agent follows it
whenever it applies.

## Writing one

Skills live under **Skills** in the nav. A skill has a name, a description, and a body.

The **description** is what the agent reads when deciding whether a skill is relevant, so it is
load-bearing. "How we count active customers" earns its way into a turn; "customer stuff" does not.
Vistazo writes a first draft of the description for you, and you can edit it.

The editor saves as you type. If a colleague is already editing, the page says so by name and stays
read-only until their lock goes stale, at which point you can **take over**.

<Tip>
  Links in a skill body render as links. It is a real document. Keep it the length you would want to
  read, since a skill that loads before the work costs tokens every time it applies.
</Tip>

## How the agent uses one

Two paths, and both matter.

* **You invoke it.** Type `/` in any composer and pick one. Its body is prepended to that turn.
* **The agent picks it.** The names and descriptions of the skills you can read sit in the agent's
  context, so it can reach for the right one on its own when your question matches.

The second path is why descriptions deserve care, and why a skill does not need to be invoked to be
useful. The catalog holds up to 100 skills and covers only the ones you have access to.

## Versions

Skills are versioned like dashboards, under **Settings → History** on the skill. Save a version
deliberately, or let one be recorded when your edits settle. Restoring is undoable, because the current
state is snapshotted first.

## Who can read and edit

By default every full member of the workspace can read and edit every skill. You can narrow that per
skill under **Settings → Sharing**, naming individual people or changing the workspace baseline.

Two exceptions worth knowing.

* **Guests**, meaning people invited by email to specific objects, need an explicit grant and are always
  read-only.
* **Viewer seats** can browse and read skills in the app, but cannot edit them, and their agent gets no
  skills at all. Neither the catalog nor an invoked body reaches a viewer-seat chat, because skills are
  instructions for building. See [Roles and seats](/workspace/members#roles-seats-and-guests).

A skill can also be shared outside the workspace with a link, like a dashboard. The link renders the
document. See [Sharing](/sharing/overview).

## Agents can write them too

An agent connected over MCP can author skills with `save_skill`, and the write happens immediately.

A skill an agent created or last edited is held back until a person confirms it. It appears in the agent
catalog **only to its author** until somebody opens it in the editor and saves. So an agent cannot
quietly install standing instructions that steer everyone else's conversations.

<Note>
  Vistazo AI, the in-app chat, asks before saving a skill, because a skill is workspace-wide standing
  instruction rather than an edit to one object. Your own MCP client does not ask, which is what the
  hold-back above exists to cover.
</Note>
