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

# LuumenAI Skills

> Turn your runbooks and SOPs into reusable AI workflows. Skills run step-by-step with human-in-the-loop approval at every action.

Skills are AI-powered workflows built from your team's runbooks and SOPs. Instead of explaining a multi-step process to LuumenAI every time, you codify it once as a Skill, and anyone with access can run it. LuumenAI executes each step with human-in-the-loop approval.

Common uses for Skills include pre-patch checklists, log rotation, service health checks, deploy verifications, compliance reports, and incident triage runbooks.

## What makes up a Skill

A Skill is a named, reusable LuumenAI workflow with:

* A **name** and **description** that explain what the Skill does and when to use it.
* An ordered list of **steps** — each step has a description and the commands LuumenAI will run.
* A **scope** that controls who can see and run it.
* An **owner** — the user who created or currently owns the Skill.

When a Skill runs, LuumenAI executes its steps in order against the host you're connected to. As with any LuumenAI action, every command requires your approval before it runs.

## Skill scopes

Every Skill has one of three scopes:

* **Personal** — visible only to you. Use this for procedures you've built for your own workflow.
* **Workspace** — visible to every member of the workspace. Use this for procedures your immediate team relies on.
* **Organization** — visible to every member of every workspace in your organization. Use this for procedures that should be standardized company-wide.

<Note>
  Workspace and Organization scopes are available on Team and Enterprise plans. On Free and Pro plans, Skills are Personal.
</Note>

## The Skills widget

You can reach **Skills** in two ways:

* **Hamburger menu** — click the hamburger menu in the top left-hand corner and select **Skills**. This opens the full Skills widget with the complete library.
* **LuumenAI chat** — in any LuumenAI conversation, click the **book icon** in the chat input. This opens a quick menu with options to create, run, and manage Skills, plus a list of your recent Skills.

The Skills widget shows every Skill you have access to, with run counts and recency.

## Create a Skill

Skills are created through a guided LuumenAI conversation, not a form. The conversation captures the procedure in your own words, then turns it into a structured Skill.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Start the creation chat">
    Open the Skills widget and click **Add skill** (or **Create via LuumenAI chat** if your library is empty). A new LuumenAI chat opens dedicated to creating the Skill.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Describe the procedure">
    Explain what the Skill should do, when it should be run, and what commands to run. You can paste in an SOP, runbook, or shell snippets — LuumenAI will read whatever you give it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Answer clarifying questions">
    LuumenAI asks follow-ups to fill in any gaps. For example: "Should this run before or after a backup?" "What should happen if a service fails to restart?" "Should I check disk space first?"
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review the generated Skill">
    Once your answers are clear, LuumenAI generates a name, description, and step-by-step plan, and shows them for review.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save the Skill">
    Confirm the scope (Personal, Workspace, or Organization) and save. The Skill now appears in the Skills widget and is available to run.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Run a Skill

You can run a Skill three ways. In every case, LuumenAI executes the Skill's steps one at a time and asks for approval before running each command.

### From the Skills widget

1. Open the Skills widget.
2. Click a Skill to open its details.
3. Click **Run**.
4. Select the host to run the Skill against.
5. Approve each step as LuumenAI executes it.

### Manually from the LuumenAI chat

1. In any LuumenAI conversation on a connected host, click the **book icon** in the chat input.
2. Choose **Run skill**, then pick the Skill you want.
3. Approve each step as LuumenAI executes it.

### Automatically, via LuumenAI

When a Skill applies to your conversation, LuumenAI may suggest running it instead of generating a new procedure on the fly. For example, if you ask "Help me prepare this server for patching," LuumenAI may propose running your Pre-Patch Server Check Skill.

You always approve the run before it starts, and you approve each individual command within the Skill's steps.

## View Skill details

Click any Skill in the Skills widget to open its detail view. The detail panel shows:

* **Name and description**
* **Scope and owner** — including a read-only indicator if you don't own the Skill
* **Run statistics** — total runs, last run, created date
* **Steps** — each numbered step with its description and the commands it runs

If you own the Skill, you can edit it from this view. If someone else owns it, you can run it but not change it.

## Transfer ownership of a Skill

Skills can be transferred from one user to another. Only the current owner of a Skill can transfer it.

1. Open the Skill's detail view.
2. Click **Transfer**.
3. Select the new owner.
4. Confirm the transfer.

## How Skills work with Snippets

Skills and [Snippets](/guides/snippets) serve different purposes and can be used together:

* **Snippets** are individual saved commands you copy into a terminal or that LuumenAI can run as a single action.
* **Skills** are multi-step procedures that orchestrate work, often using snippets and other commands as building blocks.

A useful pattern: start with Snippets for the repeatable individual commands, then build a Skill that strings several together into a coherent procedure.

## Tips for writing better Skills

* **Start with an existing SOP.** Paste your current runbook, Notion page, or wiki entry directly into the creation chat. LuumenAI will turn unstructured prose into structured steps.
* **Make the description specific.** "Run before patching" is fine. "Run before patching production database servers to confirm there are no long-running queries and that backups are recent" is much better — LuumenAI uses the description to decide when to suggest the Skill.
* **Test before sharing.** Run the Skill yourself first, then change the scope to Workspace or Organization once you're confident.
* **Use Personal first, promote later.** Build Skills for yourself, refine them, then promote them to Workspace or Organization once they're proven.

## Example: turning a pre-patch checklist into a Skill

Suppose your team runs three checks before patching a server: confirm there are no active sessions, snapshot disk usage, and verify the patch source is reachable. Today you might keep this in a Notion page that everyone follows manually.

You can codify it as a Skill that the entire team can run:

1. Open the Skills widget and click **Add skill**.
2. In the chat, paste your existing checklist or describe it in your own words.
3. LuumenAI asks clarifying questions. For example, "Should this fail loudly if there are active sessions, or just warn?"
4. Once LuumenAI has enough detail, it generates a Skill named "Pre-Patch Server Check" with three steps.
5. Once you save the Skill and share it, anyone on your team can run "Pre-Patch Server Check" on a host, and LuumenAI will run each step with your approval.

## Next steps

* Save your repeatable commands as [Snippets](/guides/snippets).
* [Connect to a host](/get-started/first-ssh-connection) and try a Skill against it.
* Browse the [help center](https://support.luumen.ai/en/) for more on LuumenAI.