What is Skills
Understand how skills extend agent capabilities - modular, installable, and composable.
In this article you'll learn about What are skills?, then explore How skills work, and finally review Built-in vs. Marketplace skills.
What are skills?
Skills are modular capability packages that extend what your AI agents can do. Think of them as apps for your agents - each skill adds a specific ability such as managing calendars, sending emails, or processing natural language.
Every skill is:
- Self-contained - includes its own configuration, prompts, and integration logic
- Composable - multiple skills can work together on a single agent
- Versioned - updates are managed independently without affecting other skills
How skills work
When you install a skill on an agent, the agent gains access to new actions and triggers:
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Actions | Things the skill can do (e.g., "send email", "create event") |
| Triggers | Events that activate the skill (e.g., "new email received", "meeting in 10 min") |
| Configuration | Skill-specific settings (e.g., API keys, default behaviors) |
Skills run in a sandboxed environment and communicate with the agent through a standardized protocol, ensuring security and reliability.
Built-in vs. Marketplace skills
Botonom ships with a set of built-in skills that cover common use cases:
- Email Automation
- Calendar Management (Google Calendar, Outlook)
- CRM Connector (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive)
- Reservation Management
- Turkish NLP Engine
Beyond built-in skills, the Skill Marketplace offers community and partner-built skills that you can install with one click.