Built-in Skills

Skills overview

Skills are instruction files (SKILL.md) that tell the AI how to approach specific domains — React patterns, mobile development, API design, document generation, and more. When a skill is active, the AI follows its instructions precisely.

The SkillLoader singleton (app/lib/services/skillLoader.ts) loads skills from three directories and injects them into the system prompt via the <available_skills> section.

Three skill directories

Skills are organized in three directories with different purposes:

Core skills

The 4 core skills that are always loaded:

Design skills

The 8 design skills bundled with Amplify:

Skill definition format

Each skill is defined by a SKILL.md file with optional manifest.json.

SKILL.md format:

---
name: react-best-practices
description: >
  React best practices including hooks, state management,
  performance optimization, and component architecture
priority: 50
tags: react, frontend, hooks
---

# Skill: React Best Practices

## Purpose
Guide the AI to write clean, performant React code...

## Architecture Notes
...

## Implementation Rules
...

## Common Pitfalls
...

## Recommended APIs
...

## Code Standards
...

manifest.json (optional):

{
  "name": "react-best-practices",
  "description": "React best practices including hooks...",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "priority": 50
}

If manifest.json exists, it overrides frontmatter values for name and description.

• Skill loading process

  The SkillLoader scans each directory:

  1. Reads each subdirectory
  2. Looks for SKILL.md file
  3. Tries manifest.json first, falls back to YAML frontmatter
  4. If neither: uses first non-heading, non-empty line as description
  5. Stores in _skills Map keyed by lowercase name
  6. Also supports legacy single .md files (non-user dirs only)

Skill tools

The AI can call these tools to discover and use skills:

Project-specific filtering: getProjectSkills(projectId) from projectSkillsStore can filter which skills are available per project. Skills can be toggled on/off per project via the settings UI.

Creating custom skills

You can create custom skills in three ways:

SKILL.md recommended sections: