Docs › Extending AstraCode
Skills
Teach the agent a procedure you want followed the same way every time.
A skill is a multi-step workflow in a folder: a release checklist, a review rubric, a deploy sequence. <name>/SKILL.md carries a name and description, and beside it goes whatever the workflow needs (scripts/, references/, assets/) referred to by relative path.
How they stay cheap
The agent sees only the catalogue, each skill's name and description, until it decides to use one. Then the skill's body and its folder are loaded, so relative paths inside it resolve. Twenty skills cost twenty lines until one is actually needed.
Controlling when one is used
| Frontmatter | Effect |
|---|---|
| paths: "**/*.tsx" | Offered only when a matching file is in play. |
| disable-model-invocation | Never chosen by the agent; only when you type /name. |
Skills that ship with AstraCode
Some skills come with AstraCode, such as the infrastructure skill for Terraform, Kubernetes, Helm and Docker. They are attached for you when your request calls for them, or when the agent starts working in files they cover, so a ticket that only says "work on PLAT-266" still gets the right one. A skill of your own with the same name replaces the bundled one.
Skills or rules?
A rule always applies. Use one for *never commit to main*. A skill is loaded when relevant. Use one for *how we cut a release*.
All documentation
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Agent
- Agent overview
- Approvals and permissions
- Plan mode
- What the agent can do
- Running commands
- Browser tools
- Checkpoints and undo
- Infrastructure as code
- Running several agents at once