Using Agent Skills

The Skills page is your hub for managing Agent Skills — structured workflows that give the SRI Agent domain expertise. Enable pre-built system skills, create custom skills tailored to your team’s runbooks, and manage everything from one place.

Agent Skills page with System and Custom counters, skills catalogue on the left, and a skill open on the right showing description and agent instructions.

Skills Page Overview

When you open Skills from the left sidebar, you’ll see:

Skill counts — Total System and Custom skills at a glance
Filter tabs — Switch between System, Custom, Enabled, and Disabled views
Search bar — Find skills by name or description
Skills catalog — List of all available skills with status badges
+ New Skill button — Create a custom skill (top-right corner)

First time here? A banner at the top introduces Agent Skills and links to the open Agent Skills format documentation.

Browsing Skills

Filter Tabs

Use the filter tabs above the catalog to narrow your view:

Filter	Shows
System	Pre-built skills maintained by RubixKube
Custom	Skills created by your team
Enabled	All currently active skills
Disabled	Skills that are available but not active

You can also use the Search bar to find skills by name or keyword.

Skill Cards

Each skill in the catalog shows:

Name with an ENABLED or DISABLED badge
Brief description of what the skill does
Agent assignment (sre-agent)
Tool count — how many tools the skill uses

Viewing Skill Details

Click on any skill in the catalog to see its full details in the right panel:

Skill detail view showing description, instructions, and tools

The detail panel displays:

Skill type — system skill or custom
Agent — Which agent uses this skill (currently sre-agent)
Version — Skill version number
Last updated — When the skill was last modified
Enabled toggle — Enable or disable the skill for your tenant
Use as template — Create a custom skill based on this one
Description — Full description of the skill’s purpose
Instructions — The step-by-step workflow the agent follows, including which tools to use at each step

Enabling and Disabling Skills

Enable a Skill

To make a skill available to the SRI Agent:

Navigate to the Skills page
Find the skill you want to enable in the catalog
Click on the skill to open its detail panel
Toggle the Enabled switch to on

The skill becomes immediately available — the next time you ask a relevant question in Chat, the SRI Agent will use this skill’s instructions.

Disable a Skill

To stop a skill from being used:

Open the skill’s detail panel
Toggle the Enabled switch to off

Disabling a skill does not delete it. You can re-enable it at any time.

Creating Custom Skills

You can create custom skills in two ways: from scratch or from a template.

Option 1: Create from Scratch

New Skill form with upload, name, description, and instructions fields

Click + New Skill

Click the ”+ New Skill” button in the top-right corner of the Skills page.

Upload or Fill In

You have two options:

Upload a SKILL.md file — Drag and drop a skill file that follows the open Agent Skills format. The fields will be auto-populated.
Fill in manually — Enter the skill details directly in the form.

Enter Skill Details

Fill in the following fields:

Field	Description	Rules
Name	Unique skill identifier	Lowercase, numbers, hyphens only. 1–64 characters
Description	What the skill does	Up to 1024 characters
Agent	Which agent will use this skill	Select SRI Agent from the dropdown
Allowed Tools	Tools this skill can use	Comma-separated tool names. Leave empty for all tools
Instructions	Step-by-step workflow	The detailed instructions the agent will follow

Select the Agent

From the Agent dropdown, select SRI Agent. This is currently the only agent available for skill assignment.

Create the Skill

Click “Create skill” to save. The skill will appear in the catalog under the Custom filter tab.

Option 2: Create from Template

New skill from template form with pre-populated fields

Open a System Skill

Click on any system skill in the catalog to open its detail panel.

Click Use as Template

Click “Use as template” in the top-right of the detail panel.

Customize

The form opens pre-populated with the system skill’s details. Modify the name, description, instructions, and allowed tools to match your requirements.

Select Agent and Create

Select SRI Agent from the agent dropdown and click “Create skill”.

Using templates is the fastest way to create custom skills — start from a proven workflow and adapt it to your environment.

Editing Custom Skills

You can edit any custom skill after it has been created. System skills cannot be edited directly — use “Use as template” to create an editable copy instead.

Open the Custom Skill

Click on the custom skill in the catalog to open its detail panel.

Click Edit

Click the “Edit” button in the top-right of the detail panel. The skill form opens pre-populated with the current values.

Update the Fields

Modify any of the editable fields:

Field	Description
Name	Unique skill identifier (lowercase, numbers, hyphens)
Description	What the skill does and when to use it
Agent	Which agent will use this skill (SRI Agent)
Allowed Tools	Comma-separated tool names the skill can use
Instructions	Step-by-step workflow the agent follows

Save Changes

Click “Update skill” to save. Changes take effect immediately — the next Chat interaction will use the updated skill definition.

Editing a skill’s instructions or allowed tools takes effect immediately for all future executions. If a skill is currently in use by an active Chat session, the updated version applies to the next invocation.

Agent Selection

Agent dropdown showing SRI Agent as the available option

When creating or editing a custom skill, you’ll see an Agent dropdown. Currently, the SRI Agent is the only agent available for skill assignment. The SRI Agent powers RubixKube’s Chat interface — when you ask questions related to an enabled skill’s domain, the agent automatically triggers the skill and follows its instructions.

Allowed Tools

When creating a skill, you can specify which tools the skill is designed to use:

Comma-separated list — Enter tool names separated by commas (e.g., fetch_infrastructure_snapshot, fetch_kubernetes_logs, analyze_kubernetes_resources)
Leave empty — If left empty, the skill can reference all available tools

Common tools include: fetch_infrastructure_snapshot, fetch_kubernetes_graph_snapshot, analyze_kubernetes_resources, kubectl_describe_tool, fetch_kubernetes_logs, fetch_kubernetes_metrics

Skill Format & Validation

RubixKube validates all skills against the open Agent Skills specification. When you create or update a skill — whether through the console form or by uploading a SKILL.md file — the following rules are enforced.

SKILL.md File Format

If you’re uploading a skill file, it must follow the standard SKILL.md format with YAML frontmatter and a markdown body:

---
name: my-custom-skill
description: A clear description of what this skill does and when to use it.
allowed-tools: tool_one tool_two tool_three
---

## Instructions

Step 1: Do the first thing
  Action: Describe what to do
  Tool: tool_one

Step 2: Do the next thing
  Action: Describe the follow-up action
  Tool: tool_two

Field Validation Rules

Name

Rule	Details
Required	Must be a non-empty string
Length	1–64 characters
Characters	Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only (`a-z`, `0-9`, `-`)
No leading/trailing hyphens	Cannot start or end with `-`
No consecutive hyphens	Cannot contain `--`

✅ kubernetes-cluster-triage
✅ debug-linear-incident
✅ my-skill-v2

❌ My-Skill          (uppercase not allowed)
❌ -my-skill          (cannot start with hyphen)
❌ my--skill           (consecutive hyphens not allowed)
❌ this-name-is-way-too-long-and-exceeds-the-sixty-four-character-maximum-limit

Description

Rule	Details
Required	Must be a non-empty string
Length	1–1024 characters
Best practice	Describe both what the skill does and when to use it. Include keywords that help the SRI Agent match user queries to this skill

Instructions

Rule	Details
Required	Must be a non-empty string
Length	Max 16,384 characters (16 KB)
Best practice	Use clear step-by-step structure. Specify which tool to use at each step

Write instructions as structured steps:

Step 1: Obtain High-Level Cluster Overview
  Action: Begin by getting a broad snapshot of the
  entire cluster's state.
  Tool: fetch_infrastructure_snapshot

Step 2: Analyze Resource Health
  Action: Identify any resources in error, warning,
  or degraded states.
  Tool: analyze_kubernetes_resources

Allowed Tools

Rule	Details
Optional	Can be left empty (skill can reference all available tools)
Format	Comma-separated tool names in the console, or space-delimited in `SKILL.md` frontmatter

Compatibility (optional)

Rule	Details
Optional	Only include if your skill has specific environment requirements
Type	Must be a string
Length	Max 500 characters

Metadata (optional)

Rule	Details
Max keys	50
Key length	Max 64 characters per key
Value length	Max 1000 characters per string value

Allowed Frontmatter Fields

Only the following fields are recognized in the SKILL.md frontmatter:

Field	Required	Description
`name`	✅	Unique skill identifier
`description`	✅	What the skill does and when to use it
`allowed-tools`	❌	Tools this skill is designed to use
`license`	❌	License applied to the skill
`compatibility`	❌	Environment requirements
`metadata`	❌	Custom key-value pairs

RubixKube follows the open Agent Skills specification from Anthropic. You can validate your SKILL.md files locally using the skills-ref reference library.

You can also upload a SKILL.md file following the open Agent Skills specification — the same format used by Cursor, Claude Code, and GitHub Copilot.

How Skills Get Triggered

Skills can be triggered in two ways through Chat: automatically by intent matching, or explicitly using the @ mention.

Automatic Matching

When you ask the SRI Agent a question, it silently compares your intent against all enabled skills. If a match is found, the agent loads and follows that skill’s instructions — no special syntax needed. For example:

Asking “What’s wrong with my cluster?” → triggers kubernetes-cluster-triage
Asking “Put my Linear tickets in Notion” → triggers linear-tickets-to-notion

Explicit @ Mention

You can also invoke a skill directly by typing @ in the Chat input. This opens a context menu listing all enabled skills — click the one you want, then type your message.

@ context menu showing available skills in Chat

This is useful when you want to explicitly choose which skill the agent should follow, rather than relying on automatic matching.

Skill Execution

Once a skill is triggered (by either method), the SRI Agent:

Loads the skill’s detailed instructions
Executes each step using the specified tools (you’ll see fetch_skill_details in the Chat activity)
Returns structured results in your conversation

Chat showing skill execution with fetch_skill_details tool call

You don’t need to mention the skill by name when using automatic matching — the SRI Agent infers the match from context. Use @ when you want to be explicit.

System Skills Reference

RubixKube includes the following pre-built system skills:

Skill	Description	Tools
kubernetes-cluster-triage	Systematic health check and triage of a Kubernetes cluster — analyzes infrastructure, identifies unhealthy resources, gathers diagnostics	6 tools
linear-tickets-to-notion	Fetches assigned Linear issues and adds them to a new Notion page using Linear and Notion MCP tools	sre-agent
research-devops-sre-infra	Uses web search to research DevOps, SRE, and infrastructure topics	1 tool

What You Learned

How to browse and filter skills in the catalog
How to view skill details including description, instructions, and tools
How to enable and disable skills
How to create custom skills from scratch or from a template
How skills get triggered through Chat
The system skills available out of the box

Next: Using Settings

Using Agents & Tools — Monitor agent health and capabilities
Skills Concepts, how skills work and why they matter
Dashboard — Your command center for infrastructure health
Integrations — Connect external tools and services

Need Help?

Contact Support

Email: connect@rubixkube.ai
Please include your Tenant ID (Settings → Organization), timestamp, and screenshots.

Troubleshooting Guide

Step-by-step fixes for common issues across Dashboard, Insights, Agents, and more.

FAQ

Answers to common questions about setup, RCA, agents, and docs.

Docs Navigation

Browse all guides to learn workflows and best practices.

​Using Agent Skills

​Skills Page Overview

​Browsing Skills

​Filter Tabs

​Skill Cards

​Viewing Skill Details

​Enabling and Disabling Skills

​Enable a Skill

​Disable a Skill

​Creating Custom Skills

​Option 1: Create from Scratch

​Option 2: Create from Template

​Editing Custom Skills

​Agent Selection

​Allowed Tools

​Skill Format & Validation

​SKILL.md File Format

​Field Validation Rules

​Allowed Frontmatter Fields

​How Skills Get Triggered

​Automatic Matching

​Explicit @ Mention

​Skill Execution

​System Skills Reference

​What You Learned

​Next: Using Settings

​Related Guides

​Need Help?

Contact Support

Troubleshooting Guide

FAQ

Docs Navigation

Using Agent Skills

Skills Page Overview

Browsing Skills

Filter Tabs

Skill Cards

Viewing Skill Details

Enabling and Disabling Skills

Enable a Skill

Disable a Skill

Creating Custom Skills

Option 1: Create from Scratch

Option 2: Create from Template

Editing Custom Skills

Agent Selection

Allowed Tools

Skill Format & Validation

SKILL.md File Format

Field Validation Rules

Allowed Frontmatter Fields

How Skills Get Triggered

Automatic Matching

Explicit @ Mention

Skill Execution

System Skills Reference

What You Learned

Next: Using Settings

Related Guides

Need Help?