Package and use a skill

A skill is a named markdown instruction packet — a review rubric, a house style, a checklist — that the agent loads on demand when a turn calls for it. You write the "how" of a task once; the context window only pays for it when the model actually pulls it in.

Uses: CLI (evi skill) · config ([tools] skills) · Ships: three example skills under examples/skills/.

What a `SKILL.md` looks like

A skill is a folder ~/.evi/skills/<name>/ holding a SKILL.md: optional frontmatter, then a markdown body of instructions the model follows once loaded.

---
name: code-review
description: Review a diff for correctness, style, and security issues.
---

# Code review skill
When asked to review code, follow these steps in order:
1. Read the diff in full before commenting.
2. Correctness pass (highest priority): off-by-one, resource leaks, injection …

name (optional) — the skill's id; overrides the folder name. Must match [A-Za-z0-9_-]+.
description — the one-liner shown in the model's skill index, so it can decide whether the skill is relevant. Keep it on one line (frontmatter is single-line key: value, not full YAML).
Body — everything after the frontmatter. Direct instructions work best: ordered steps, a priority list, an explicit output format.

Install one

evi skill add <name|git-url|zip-url|dir>   # one line: download (if needed) + import
evi skill import <dir-or-SKILL.md>         # copy a LOCAL folder into ~/.evi/skills/
evi skill list                             # what's installed (yours + plugin skills)
evi skill show <name>                      # print its description, body, bundled files
evi skill remove <name>                    # delete a user skill

evi skill add is the one-liner: a bare name resolves against the skills index ([plugins] index_urls + the local marketplace), while a git/zip URL or local dir is installed directly. evi skill import is the local-only copy — add --rewrite-paths to fix relative refs in SKILL.md to absolute installed paths (useful when porting a Claude Agent Skill that leans on companion files). Both take --name and --force.

Try the bundled ones

The repo ships three ready skills — code-review, sql-explain, and summarize-paper:

cp -r examples/skills/* ~/.evi/skills/          # all three
# or bring in just one:
evi skill import examples/skills/summarize-paper

See examples/skills/ for the full SKILL.md of each and examples/README.md for the rundown.

How the agent invokes it

Skills are model-driven — you don't type them (that's a slash command). Every skill's one-line index (name + description) is injected into the system prompt; when a turn matches, the model calls the invoke_skill(<name>) tool to pull the full body, and you'll see that call in the transcript. To nudge it, just ask: "review the staged diff" with code-review installed, or "use the summarize-paper skill on this PDF". The SkillStore rescans on every read, so a freshly added skill shows up without a restart (use /reload-skills in a live evi chat).

The index and the invoke_skill / list_skills tools only appear when the toggle is on (it defaults on):

# ~/.evi/config.toml
[tools]
skills = true      # default; false drops the skill index + invoke_skill tool

Skills work identically in the CLI, web, and desktop — they're a property of the agent, not the UI. Full reference: docs/features/skills.md.

Where to go next