Skills & skillsets
Two words carry the whole model: skill and skillset.
A skill is one focused ability an agent can use — a directory containing a
SKILL.md (frontmatter plus markdown instructions), sometimes with helper
scripts. Skills are small and composable, and move individually too:
sks upload-skill publishes one, and sks download-skill pulls one into a
skillset’s manifest.
Skillset
Section titled “Skillset”A skillset is a complete, installable agent configuration. It bundles:
- Skills — the abilities above
- Instructions — an
AGENTS.mdthat becomes the agent’s native instructions file on install - Subagents — specialized sub-agents the main agent can call
- Slash commands — custom commands
- MCP servers — tool servers to connect
A skillset is described by a nori.json manifest (name and version
required — layout in Authoring skills) and,
once downloaded, lives in your library under ~/.nori/profiles/<name>/.
Portability
Section titled “Portability”The value of the bundle is that one skillset works across every supported agent. You author it once; the client translates it into each agent’s own on-disk format. That’s what makes a skillset portable rather than tied to one tool.
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”- Translation & agents — how one skillset becomes each agent’s native files
- The registry — where skillsets are shared and versioned
- Authoring skills — the
SKILL.mdcontract and skillset layout
this page as markdown: /skillsets/concepts/skills-and-skillsets.md· index for agents: /llms.txt