Skills

What Skills Do

Skills turn your agent from a general assistant into something that can run specific workflows on your behalf. Each skill gives the agent focused instructions for a particular job.

A skill usually includes:

• Prompt: what the agent should do
• Trigger: when the skill should run
• Connectors: what the skill can use when it runs
• Notifications: where the skill can send results, when configured

For example, one agent might have a skill for meeting prep and another for drafting follow-up emails. Another agent might have a skill for sending bugs to Linear or logging feature requests.

Your agent can help you create and refine skills. You can describe what you want in plain language, and your agent can help turn that into a clear prompt and configuration.

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How Skills Get Triggered

Skills have three trigger types:

Manual

Runs when you type a /slash-command of your choosing in a conversation or ask your agent to activate the skill. Nothing happens automatically.

Event

Runs when something specific happens in your workspace, such as:

• Slack activity summary
• Email summary
• Meeting summary
• Note added
• Zapier integration
• Opportunity import
• Organization import
• Person import
• Opportunity created
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Schedule

Runs on a recurring schedule, such as daily, weekdays, weekly, or every 4 hours depending on the agent's plan.

Setting Up A Skill On An Agent

Each skill belongs to an agent. You can create and manage agent skills from the agent's Skills page or by talking to the agent.

Step 1: Start A Conversation

Open a chat with your agent and describe what you want.

Examples:

• "Create a skill that sends me a weekly pipeline summary every Monday at 9am."
• "Create a skill that drafts follow-up emails after my meetings."
• "Create a skill that flags bug reports from Slack."

Your agent can help write the prompt, choose a trigger, and configure notifications. These steps are also outlined explicitly below.

Step 2: Name And Description

Name
The display name for the skill. Keep it short and descriptive, such as "Morning Briefing" or "Meeting Follow-Ups."

Description
A brief summary of what the skill does. Agents also use this to decide when to reach for the skill.

Tags
Tags are used to organize and filter skills in the Skills Library.

Step 3: Prompt

The prompt is the set of instructions your agent follows when the skill runs. A good prompt should include:

• When not to act: "If the meeting had no external attendees, stop."
• What to look for: "Find action items I personally committed to."
• What to do: "Create an action, draft an email, update a CRM field, or send a notification."
• What the output should look like: "Action titles should be under 10 words."
• When to notify: "Only notify me when something was created, updated, or needs review."
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Step 4: Slash Command

The slash command lets you run the skill manually in chat, such as /morning-briefing.

Slash commands use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.

Step 5: Trigger

Choose how the skill runs:

• Manual: runs only when invoked
• Event: runs when selected events happen
• Schedule: runs on a recurring cadence

Event and scheduled skills count toward automated skill limits. Manual-only skills do not.

Step 6: Data Privacy

Agent skills have a Data Privacy setting:

Workspace: The skill can search workspace-shared data.
User: The skill can access the agent owner's private context as well as workspace data.

Use Workspace for skills that only need shared CRM data. Use User only when the skill needs the agent owner's private context.

Step 7: Notifications

Scheduled and event-triggered skills can be configured to send notifications through:

• Email
• Slack DM
• Slack channel

Slack DMs require Slack to be connected in Day.ai Notification preferences. Slack channel notifications require the Day.ai Slack app to be in the target channel, which you can add by typing /dayai into the channel.

Step 8: Connectors

Agent skills can use connectors when they run automatically. Connectors let skills interact with tools like Linear, Notion, and other external systems.

Connector access is configured on the agent skill after the connector has been set up for the user. the User must have a healthy Connector status.

Step 9: Refine Over Time

You can update a skill at any time by talking to your agent.

Examples:

• "Update Morning Briefing to include Slack highlights."
• "Change pipeline review to run weekly instead of daily."
• "Don't create actions for internal-only Slack threads."

When you give feedback about a skill's behavior, your agent can update the skill prompt to reflect that feedback.

Skills Library

The Skills Library is the shared workspace catalog for reusable skills. You can find it from:

• Agents → Skills Library
• An agent's Skills page → Add skill → Browse skills

The library has two main areas:

Custom: Skills created by your workspace.

Day AI: Official Day AI templates maintained by Day AI.

You can search the library and filter custom skills by tags.

Skills Library: Template vs Managed

Skills in the Skills Library have a deployment type, which determines how they behave once deployed.

Template Skills

A template skill is a reusable starting point.

When a template skill is added to an agent, that agent gets an independent copy. The copy can be edited without changing the original template or any other copies of the skill.

Use template when:

• Each user may need to customize the prompt
• The skill uses connectors
• You want the skill to be a flexible starting point

Any paid user can create template skills. The template creator or a workspace admin can edit or delete them.

Managed Skills

A managed skill is centrally controlled by workspace admins.

When a managed skill is deployed to agents, future edits to the source skill stay synced to managed agent copies. Users cannot edit managed copies from the agent profile.

Use managed when:

• Everyone should use the same version
• Admins should control updates
• The workflow should stay consistent across agents

Only workspace admins can create, edit, deploy, or delete managed skills.

Data Privacy In The Skills Library

Skills Library sourced skills run with workspace data only. Managed and template source skills cannot access an individual agent owner's private data from the library editor.

When a template skill is added to an agent, the agent's copy can be configured separately, therefore the Data Privacy setting can be configured to access user data.

Connectors In The Skills Library

Skills in the Skills Library do not preconfigure connector access.

If you copy a connector-backed agent skill into the Skills Library, it must be saved as a Template. Connectors are not copied into the library source, so each user adds the needed connectors after deploying the template to their agent.

Managed skills cannot be created from connector-backed skill copies.

Skill Tags

Workspace admins can create and manage tags for Skills Library items. Tags help organize custom skills and make them easier to find.

Tags can be used to filter the Custom tab in the Skills Library.

Deleting a tag removes it from skills that currently use it.

Adding A Skill To The Skills Library

You can add an existing agent skill to the Skills Library from the agent's Skills page.

Go to the skill, open the three dot menu in the right corner, and choose Add to skill library.

If the skill has unsaved changes, the library copy uses the last saved version. The library copy also uses workspace-level data access.

You can also create a new library skill directly from Agents → Skills Library → New Skill. The editor includes a Create with chat option so your agent can help write the skill.

Deploying A Skill From The Library To An Agent

From an agent's Skills page:

1. Click Add skill
2. Choose Browse skills
3. Select a skill from the Skills Library
4. Click Add to agent

For Template skills, adding the skill creates an editable copy on the agent.

For Managed skills, workspace admins can deploy the managed skill to agents. Non-admins can browse managed skills, but cannot deploy them.

Day AI Skills

Day AI provides official templates in the Day AI tab of the Skills Library. These templates are read-only and maintained by Day AI.

Current Day AI templates include:

• Actions (starts in learning mode)
• Opportunity Automation (starts in learning mode)
• Call Coaching
• Deal Coaching
• End-of-Day Follow-Up Email Drafts
• Hot Accounts
• Skill Finder

A few important details:

• Actions is available on Turbo, Professional, and Executive. It starts enabled when added.
• Opportunity Automation is available on Professional and Executive. It starts disabled and in learning mode.
• Day AI templates count toward automated skill limits when they use event or schedule triggers.
• Adding a Day AI template creates an editable copy on the agent.

Checking Skill History

Each skill keeps a log of recent runs. You can see whether a run completed, failed, queued, or is still running, and open the thread for more detail.

Go to: Agent → Skills → [skill name] → History

This is the fastest way to confirm whether a skill ran and what it did.

Automated Skill Limits

Event-triggered and scheduled skills count toward a per-agent automated skill limit. Manual-only skills do not count.

• Turbo: 2 automated slots
• Professional: 5 automated slots
• Executive: 10 automated slots

Scheduled skill frequency also depends on the agent's plan:

• Turbo and Professional support daily, weekdays, and weekly schedules
• Executive also supports every 4 hours

Scheduled skills are evaluated on a 15-minute processing window.

Troubleshooting

The skill is not running automatically

Check that:

• The skill is enabled
• The agent has automated skill slots available
• The trigger matches the event you expect
• The skill belongs to the right agent owner

For example, meeting-summary skills run for meetings owned by that agent's owner, not every meeting in the workspace.

Opportunity Automation is not doing anything

Opportunity Automation starts disabled when added. Go to the agent's Skills page, open Opportunity Automation, and turn it on.

It also starts in learning mode. In learning mode, it analyzes what it would do and sends a notification for review instead of creating or moving opportunities automatically.

The skill ran but did not update the right records

Check the skill's Data Privacy setting.

If it is set to Workspace, it can only access workspace-shared data. If the skill needs private user context, switch it to User on the agent skill.

A scheduled skill did not fire exactly when expected

Scheduled skills are evaluated on a 15-minute processing window. Also check that the skill's timezone matches the intended local time.

You hit the automated skill limit

Manual skills do not count toward the limit, but event-triggered and scheduled skills do, including Day AI templates.

To free up a slot, disable or remove another automated skill, create another agent, or upgrade the agent's plan.

A library skill is not reflecting source changes

Check whether the skill is Managed or Template.

Managed skill copies stay synced with the source. Template skills create independent copies, so future template edits do not update skills that were already added to agents.

A connector-backed skill cannot be saved as Managed

Connector-backed skill copies must be saved as Template skills. Each user adds the needed connectors after deploying the template to their agent.

Questions?

Reach out to support@day.ai or start a conversation with your agent and ask for help with skills.