> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.snorbe.deskrex.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Custom Skills

> How to create and manage custom research skills using Snorbe's Custom Skills feature

# Custom Skills

Custom Skills are custom research procedures and processing logic you can add to the Snorbe agent. Define frequently used research workflows or specific output formats as skills, and call them from chat to execute automatically.

In short, it lets you **program your own research templates and reuse them whenever needed**.

## What You Can Do

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Create Skills" icon="plus">
    Define skills in a Markdown-based format. Describe the research steps, tools to use, and the desired output format.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Invoke Skills" icon="bolt">
    Call defined skills from chat and execute them. The agent will automatically follow the specified procedure.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Official Skills" icon="star">
    Enable official skills provided by Snorbe and call them directly. Use them as templates for common research use cases.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Skill Management" icon="folder">
    List, edit, and delete the skills you've created. Share skills within your team to standardize research workflows.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Fork Skills" icon="code-branch">
    When you edit an enabled official skill, it is automatically forked (copied) and saved as your own. Forked skills take priority over the official version.
  </Card>

  <Card title="ZIP Export/Import" icon="file-zipper">
    Export and import skills as ZIP packages. Convenient for sharing skills across teams or workspaces.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How to Use

### 1. Create a Skill

Create a new skill from the Skill Management screen in the Customize settings. Write the skill in Markdown format, with skill metadata defined in the frontmatter.

```markdown theme={null}
---
name: Competitive Analysis Skill
description: A skill for analyzing competitors of a specified company
---

# Steps

1. Collect web information about the target company
2. Identify 3–5 major competitors
3. Create a comparison table from technology, market, and pricing perspectives
4. Export as a viewpoint matrix
```

### 2. Invoke the Skill

Enter the skill name or related keywords in the chat interface, and the agent will select and execute the appropriate skill.

### 3. Review the Results

The agent executes the research following the skill's steps and outputs results in the defined format.

## Official Skills

Snorbe ships with a set of official skills. Simply enable them and call them directly from chat.

<Note>
  Official skill source is public on GitHub. External agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex can also use them.

  <CardGroup cols={2}>
    <Card title="deskrexai/snorbe" icon="github" href="https://github.com/deskrexai/snorbe">
      Skill source repository. Issues and PRs welcome.
    </Card>

    <Card title="Agent Skill" icon="terminal" href="/en/api-reference/agent-skill">
      Install with `npx skills add deskrexai/snorbe` to call from external agents
    </Card>
  </CardGroup>
</Note>

### Academic and research

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Paper Search (arXiv / PubMed / Semantic Scholar)" icon="book">
    Cross-search academic databases with a **multi-angle strategy, citation traversal, and filters** (year, journal, etc.) to collect related research comprehensively.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Statistical Research (e-Stat)" icon="chart-bar">
    Retrieve market size, demographics, and economic indicators from government statistical databases.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

### Patent search

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="JPO (Japan Patent Office)" icon="scale-balanced">
    Search Japanese patents and utility models. Ideal for prior-art review in Japan.
  </Card>

  <Card title="EPO OPS (European Patent Office)" icon="scale-balanced">
    Retrieve bibliographic information on European and international patents.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Google Patents" icon="scale-balanced">
    Cross-search patents worldwide with broad coverage for trend scans.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

### Market and investment data

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="CB Insights" icon="chart-line">
    Research startups, investment trends, and market maps.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PitchBook" icon="briefcase">
    Retrieve venture capital, M\&A, and company valuation data.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Statista" icon="chart-bar">
    Access market size, statistics, and industry reports.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

### Artifact generation

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Image Editing" icon="image">
    Crop, resize, and edit images inside the agent. Shape visuals for your research deliverables.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Data Analysis and Visualization" icon="chart-simple">
    Analyze CSV and other data and generate charts — automating the visualization work for your reports.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Note>
  Visual artifacts — HTML, SVG, and images generated by skills — are automatically rendered as **PNG previews** in the chat. Generated files are available for download.
</Note>

### Document processing

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="PDF Toolkit" icon="file-pdf">
    Read, split, merge, and extract text from PDFs. Process PDF documents as part of your research output.
  </Card>

  <Card title="DOCX Toolkit" icon="file-word">
    Read, create, and edit Word documents. Format research results into Word reports.
  </Card>

  <Card title="XLSX Toolkit" icon="file-excel">
    Read, process, and chart Excel spreadsheets and CSVs. Aggregate and visualize numerical data.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PPTX Toolkit" icon="file-powerpoint">
    Read, create, and edit PowerPoint slides. Compile research results into slide decks.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

### Browser automation

<CardGroup cols={1}>
  <Card title="Browser Harness" icon="globe">
    Run browser-based skills. Automate routine data collection from specific sites or navigate pages that require login. Screenshots taken during browsing are displayed in the timeline.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

### Per-skill model override

Add a `model` field to the `SKILL.md` frontmatter to override the model used when that specific skill runs. This lets you pin a high-precision model like Claude Opus 4.7 to a specialized skill that needs it.

```markdown theme={null}
---
name: Competitive Analysis Skill
description: A skill for analyzing competitors of a specified company
model: claude-opus-4-7
---
```

## Per-Agent Skill Settings

Skills can be enabled or disabled on a per-agent basis.

* From the **agent edit screen**, select which skills that agent should use
* When **creating an agent**, you can also choose the skills to enable
* From the **skill management screen**, bulk-enable or bulk-disable skills
* The skill management screen shows which agents are using each skill

## Skill Context Files

When a skill runs, conversation history and recent tool execution results are automatically written as Markdown files inside the sandbox. Your skill code can reference these files to produce context-aware output.

If you attach files when creating a skill, those files are also transferred into the sandbox.

## Common Use Cases

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Automate Routine Research" icon="rotate">
    Define weekly competitive research or market reports as skills to streamline repeated execution.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Standardize Output Formats" icon="file-lines">
    Lock in report or presentation formats via skills to ensure consistency across the team.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Specialized Domain Research" icon="flask">
    Accumulate domain-specific research procedures for pharmaceuticals, materials, regulations, and other specialized areas as reusable skills.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

***

<Note>
  Custom Skills are written in Markdown. Skills can use all tools available to the agent — including web search, academic databases, browsing, and more.
</Note>