Skills¶

Skills are extensions that provide specialized capabilities for specific tasks. They are installed from GitHub repositories and automatically advertised to the AI when relevant.

What are Skills?¶

Skills follow a progressive disclosure pattern:

1. Advertise - Skill names and descriptions are included in the system prompt (~100 tokens per skill)
2. Load - When needed, the full SKILL.md content is loaded (< 5000 tokens)
3. Resources - Supplementary files (templates, examples) are available when needed

Install a Skill¶

Install skills from GitHub repositories:

janito --install-skill https://github.com/user/repo/tree/main/skills/git-commit

Skills are installed to ~/.janito/skills/<skill-name>/.

List Installed Skills¶

janito --list-skills

Uninstall a Skill¶

janito --uninstall-skill git-commit

Available Tools¶

When a skill is installed, two tools become available:

The AI automatically uses these tools when your request matches a skill's description.

Skill Format¶

Skills are stored as directories containing:

~/.janito/skills/<skill-name>/
├── SKILL.md          # Main skill documentation
└── resource-file.md  # Optional supplementary files

SKILL.md Format¶

A skill's SKILL.md should include:

• Name and description at the top
• Overview of what the skill does
• Usage instructions with examples
• Best practices and tips

Example: Installing the Git Commit Skill¶

# Find a skills repository on GitHub
janito --install-skill https://github.com/ikignosis/janito/tree/main/skills/git-commit

Tips¶

• Skills are automatically advertised based on your request
• The AI decides when to load a skill's full content
• Keep skill descriptions concise for efficient system prompts