Teach the agent how your team works: install skills from the catalog, write your own, or import one from GitHub.
A skill is a set of instructions the agent loads when a request fits: a release checklist, how your team writes emails, how to handle PDFs. Each skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file, and every skill you add reaches all of your sessions from their next message. For the skills Alpha already includes, see Skills that ship with Alpha. To give the agent new tools rather than new know-how, add an MCP server.
Explore opens first, on the catalog of skills you can install.
Click Skills in the sidebar. The row’s badge counts the skills your sessions have. The page opens on Explore, where the Catalog shelf lists public skills from GitHub. Type in the search box to filter by name, description or keyword, and use the order menu to sort.
Order
What it shows
Most popular
The default. Skills with the most installs across your Alpha come first.
Newest
The most recently added first
A–Z
Alphabetical by display name
By category
Grouped under From Alpha (skills an admin shared that you haven’t installed), then Engineering, Workflow & GitHub, Documents & files and Design & visuals
Each skill’s icon is a pattern of four shapes that is its own, on a tile tinted by category: sky for Engineering, violet for Workflow & GitHub, emerald for Documents & files and rose for Design & visuals. Skills that ship with Alpha take their category’s colour too. Skills an admin shared are orange, and your own skills that didn’t come from the catalog are amber. The footer links to the skill’s source on GitHub and shows an install count such as “12+ installs”.Click Install. Alpha fetches the skill’s folder from GitHub, the button becomes a green check with Installed, and a banner confirms: “pdf installed — your sessions have it from their next message.” The skill appears under Your skills. The Installed tab lists those alone, as full-width rows with their size and file count.
Installed lists every skill you have, with where it came from and a switch on each row.
Click Write a skill or Import from GitHub. Both open the Add a skill dialog, and its toggle switches between Write it here and Import from GitHub.
Write it here
Import from GitHub
1
Name it
Name is what calls the skill: $name in Codex, /name in Claude Code. Use letters, digits, - and _, up to 64 characters and starting with a letter or digit, such as booking-emails.
2
Say when to use it
When to use it is the description the agent reads to decide whether the skill fits. Be concrete about the trigger: “Use when writing or changing the emails Harbor sends to students.”
3
Write the instructions
Instructions (SKILL.md) opens with a short template. Replace it with the steps, conventions and things to avoid. To keep a SKILL.md you already have, paste the whole file, frontmatter included, and Alpha keeps that frontmatter instead of the two fields above.
Each field starts empty, and Instructions (SKILL.md) opens on a template to replace.
4
Click Add to your skills
Leave Let the agent use it on its own on so the agent picks the skill up whenever the task fits. Turn it off to run the skill only when a message mentions it.
The saved file looks like this:
---name: booking-emailsdescription: "Use when writing or changing the emails Harbor sends to students."---# Booking emails- Sign off as "The Harbor Sailing School team", never as a person.- Every confirmation names the class, the date in the student's time zone and the meeting point.- Keep templates in `emails/` and preview each one before you finish.- Never put a payment amount in the subject line.
Paste owner/repo, owner/repo/path/to/skill or a github.com link to the skill’s folder into Repository or URL. When you give only owner/repo, put the folder holding SKILL.md in Path (optional). Branch or tag (optional) pins a version. Click Add to your skills; the button reads “Fetching…” while Alpha downloads the folder, reference files and scripts included.Private repositories need GitHub connected in a session. Files over 1 MB are skipped, and the banner says how many.
A link to the skill's folder is enough; Path and Branch or tag are optional.
A skill imported from GitHub keeps its link. Open it later and choose ⋯ → Refresh from GitHub to pull the latest version.
Ask for it in plain words, in any session. The agent writes the skill into its own skills folder, with a SKILL.md and any scripts beside it. When the turn ends, Alpha installs it as your skill.Alpha will:
Have the agent write release-steps from the commands this session ran.
Install it under your skills when the turn ends.
Add a line to the transcript, and give every session the skill from its next message.
On the Skills page its source reads “written by the agent in “Harbor bookings””, and in its dialog that line links back to the session. It stays in step with that session: when the agent changes the skill there, your copy follows at the end of that turn. If the transcript instead says “The skill $release-steps in this sandbox was not published”, the reason follows it, usually a name that’s already taken.
A row’s switch takes the skill in or out of your sessions. Click elsewhere on the row to open its dialog.
Control
What it does
Installed in your sessions
Off keeps the skill on the page but out of every session
Let the agent use it on its own
Off makes it mention only: it runs when a message names it, and the row gets a mention only chip
SKILL.md
Edit in place, then Save. Expand opens a full-screen editor.
Remove
Deletes the skill after you confirm. Your sessions lose it on their next message.
To use a skill on purpose, mention it in the composer. In a Codex session, type $ and pick from the list. In a Claude Code session, skills appear under / with the other commands. Type /skills in any session to see what the agent can use there.
Removing a skill you wrote here deletes its only copy, and it can’t be undone. Switch it off instead if you might want it back. A skill imported from GitHub can be imported again.
Alpha’s own skills, such as Design system and Slides, read ships with Alpha and are on for everyone. An admin can share one of their own skills the same way, or put it in the catalog under From Alpha for each account to install.Your switch on a shared skill is yours alone. Turning it off takes the skill out of your sessions, and other accounts keep theirs. If you have a skill of your own with the same name, the shared one shows yours instead and your version is the one your sessions get.Admins only Only an admin edits a shared skill. Everyone else sees its SKILL.md as read-only. Alpha’s own skills are read-only for admins too. An admin shares or takes back a skill from the ⋯ menu in its dialog, and each action asks first:
Action
What happens
Ship with Alpha
Every account’s sessions get it from their next message
Add to catalog
It appears under From Alpha for each account to install
Unpublish (on a shared skill)
It leaves every other account’s sessions and goes back to the account that added it
Alpha’s own skills can never be removed. A skill an admin shipped can be removed only once an admin switches off Ships with Alpha in its dialog, which moves it to the catalog. See the Admin dashboard for who counts as an admin.
