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Skill

Introduction

A Skill is a capability package that can be added to an agent application to enable the agent to automatically handle specific types of tasks during conversations. With Skills, agents gain professional capabilities—such as file processing and data analysis—without requiring additional coding.

What Is a Skill?

Once added, a Skill enables the agent to automatically recognize matching tasks in conversations and invoke the corresponding Skill for execution—no extra code or external tool integration required. Bailian provides two types of Skills:
  • Official Skills: Prebuilt, general-purpose Skills provided by the platform, covering common file-processing scenarios. No configuration is needed—just add and use.
  • Custom Skills: Created by uploading a ZIP skill package. Ideal for business scenarios not covered by Official Skills—for example, industry-specific data processing or custom file format parsing.

Official Skills

Bailian offers multiple Official Skills covering common file-processing use cases. These Skills are centrally maintained by the platform, require no configuration, and are ready to use immediately after being added. Official Skills are continuously updated. You can view the latest list on the Skill Management page.

Creating a Custom Skill

When Official Skills don’t meet your business needs, you can create a Custom Skill by uploading a ZIP skill package. The ZIP package must meet the following requirements:
RequirementDescription
Must include SKILL.mdA SKILL.md file must exist at the root directory of the ZIP package to define the Skill’s metadata.
Size limitThe entire ZIP package must not exceed 10 MB.
Unique nameThe name field in SKILL.md must not duplicate any existing Skill name under your account.

SKILL.md Specification

SKILL.md uses YAML format to define the Skill’s name and description. Example format: 
name: my-custom-skill
description: "Description of the Skill’s functionality, including trigger conditions, applicable scenarios, and excluded scenarios."
Field Reference
FieldRequiredDescription
nameYesA unique identifier for the Skill. We recommend using lowercase English letters and hyphens—for example, data-cleaner or invoice-parser.
descriptionYesDescribes the Skill’s trigger conditions and processing capabilities. The agent uses this description to decide whether to invoke the Skill; therefore, description quality directly affects invocation accuracy.
Best Practices for Writing description The quality of the description determines how accurately the agent invokes the Skill. Include the following information:
  1. Supported input types: Clearly specify the file formats or data types the Skill handles.
  2. Supported operations: List the concrete actions the Skill can perform.
  3. Trigger keywords: Specify keywords or phrasings in user conversations that should trigger this Skill.
  4. Excluded scenarios: Explicitly state situations where the Skill should not be triggered to prevent misinvocation.
Complete Example Below is the SKILL.md for Bailian’s official xlsx Skill: 
name: xlsx
description: "Use this skill any time a spreadsheet file is the primary input or output. This means any task where the user wants to: open, read, edit, or fix an existing .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv, or .tsv file (e.g., adding columns, computing formulas, formatting, charting, cleaning messy data); create a new spreadsheet from scratch or from other data sources; or convert between tabular file formats. Trigger especially when the user references a spreadsheet file by name or path — even casually (like \"the xlsx in my downloads\") — and wants something done to it or produced from it. Also trigger for cleaning or restructuring messy tabular data files (malformed rows, misplaced headers, junk data) into proper spreadsheets. The deliverable must be a spreadsheet file. Do NOT trigger when the primary deliverable is a Word document, HTML report, standalone Python script, database pipeline, or Google Sheets API integration, even if tabular data is involved."
In this example:
  • Supported file formats are explicitly listed (.xlsx, .xlsm, .csv, .tsv).
  • Applicable operations are enumerated (reading, editing, creating, format conversion, data cleaning, etc.).
  • Trigger scenarios include casual references to spreadsheet filenames or paths.
  • Excluded scenarios are clearly defined (e.g., outputs like Word documents, HTML reports, or Python scripts).

Uploading and Creating a Custom Skill

1

Navigate to the Skill Management Page

In the console’s left navigation bar, select Managed Agents > Skills.
2

Create a Custom Skill

Click the Custom Skill button in the top-right corner.
3

Upload the ZIP File

In the pop-up dialog, click the upload area to select your ZIP file—or drag and drop the file directly into the upload zone.
4

Submit

Click Confirm to submit.
After submission, the system automatically reviews the Skill content—review typically takes ~2 minutes.
  • Review passed: The Skill appears in the Custom Skills tab and can be added to agent applications.
  • Review failed: Modify the SKILL.md content according to the error message and re-upload.

Updating a Custom Skill

Uploading a ZIP package with the same name creates a new version. The update process mirrors initial creation:
  1. Modify the local ZIP package contents (e.g., update the description in SKILL.md).
  2. Re-upload the ZIP package from the Custom Skills tab.
  3. Once review passes, agents already using this Skill will automatically adopt the latest version.

Adding a Skill to an Agent

You can add either Official or Custom Skills to an agent application via one of two methods. After adding, the agent will automatically invoke the Skill when encountering tasks matching its description during conversations.

Method 1: Add from the Skill Detail Page

  1. In the console’s left navigation bar, select Managed Agents > Skills, then click the target Skill card to open its detail page.
  2. Click Add to Agent in the top-right corner.
  3. Select the target application from the pop-up list and confirm.

Method 2: Add via Application Configuration

  1. Navigate to the target agent application’s Application Configuration page.
  2. In the left configuration panel, locate the Skills section and click the + icon next to the desired Skill.
  3. Select the required Skill from the list and confirm.

Viewing Skill Details

  1. In the console’s left navigation bar, select Managed Agents > Skills.
  2. Under either the Official Skills or Custom Skills tab, click the target Skill card to open its detail page.
The detail page contains two tabs:
  • Overview: Displays the Skill’s name, current version number, functional description, and attributes. Use the version dropdown to switch between historical versions.
  • Update History: Lists release timestamps and change notes for all versions of this Skill.
Official Skills are centrally maintained and updated by the platform. Agents already using an Official Skill automatically receive the latest version. Custom Skills are updated by re-uploading a ZIP package with the same name.

Testing Skill Effectiveness

After adding a Skill, test its behavior in the conversation pane on the right side of the Application Configuration page. For example, send the following message in the conversation pane:
Help me create a table containing this month’s sales data, aggregated by region. The agent will invoke the xlsx Skill and generate a downloadable .xlsx file with region-aggregated statistics.
MCP
Skill
Changelog