Skills: rules and live actions

Skills are plain-language rules you teach the agent. A guidance skill shapes what the bot says; an action skill fetches live data or performs a task — call an API, post to Slack, send an email — and weaves the result into its reply. The agent triggers a skill by meaning, not exact keywords.

Create a skill

Go to Sidebar › Skills › New skill:

• Skill name — a short label.
• Applies to — all chatbots or one specific bot.
• When should the agent use this? — describe the situation in plain language.
• What should it do or say? — the instruction.
• Skill type — Guidance (no external calls) or Action (run a connector).

For an Action skill you also pick a connector (HTTP, Slack, Email, or Google Sheets), its request config, a risk level (Safe or Sensitive), whether to confirm first, and a priority. Use placeholders like {{visitor.email}}, {{message}}, or extracted values like {{args.order_id}}.

Keys: never paste API keys into a skill. Connector credentials live in the encrypted Connectors area; the skill only holds the request template.

Example A — guidance skill (refund policy)

• When to use: the visitor asks about refunds, returns, money back, or cancelling an order.
• What to say: explain our 14-day money-back guarantee, then offer to connect them with a human to start a return.

Example B — action skill (check order status)

• When to use: the visitor wants to know where their order is.
• Connector: HTTP → GET https://api.yourstore.com/orders/{{args.order_id}}
• Risk: Safe, no confirmation (read-only lookup).

A visitor asks "where's my order 10432?" → the agent recognises the intent, extracts order_id = 10432, calls your API, and replies with the live status.