Save a process as a skill

Member·3 minutes to read

What this does for you

Once a bot has done a task the way you want it, you can ask it to keep that process as a named skill — with the steps it took, how to check the result, what to hand back, and which actions it must ask you about every time.

Before you start

A conversation in which the bot has already done the task, corrected until it is right.
A name for the skill, such as Weekly account health.

Steps

In the same conversation, write: "Save the process we just used as a skill called Weekly account health."
The bot looks up the tools it called earlier in the conversation, in order, and saves a skill whose steps name them. On your own bot it is switched on straight away, and it appears in the bot's / menu under its name. On a Team Bot it stays off until the bot's owner or a manager switches it on in the bot's details pane; if you are neither, the bot keeps the process in its notes with you instead, and says the owner or a manager can make it a team how-to.
Open the skill to read it. Below the instructions, the editor shows any of these sections the skill has, each under its own heading:
- Check — how to tell the result is right.
- Output — what to return, and in what shape.
- Needs approval — the actions the bot must ask you about each time it follows this skill.
To change a section, edit it in the instructions and press Save.

A worked example

The three sections sit after the steps, as real markdown headings. Shown here with those headings in bold instead, so this page's own sections stay the ones listed above:

# Weekly account health

Use this when the weekly account review is due.

**Steps**
1. Call `hubspot.search_deals` for the accounts that renewed last week.
2. Call `gmail.send` with the summary to each account owner.

**Check**
- Every account in the list has a deal stage.

**Output**
A table with one row per account: name, stage, last contact.

**Needs approval**
- `gmail.send`

Each line under Needs approval is one tool name (gmail.send) or one permission tag (external_send). While a bot follows this skill — because you picked it with /, or because it read it — every call to a listed tool, or to a tool carrying a listed tag, waits for your approval, even if an Allow automatically rule would otherwise let it through. Tools the section does not list behave as before.

What can go wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
`## Needs approval names no tool or permission tag called "…"`	A line under Needs approval is not a tool name or a permission tag — often a typo.	Correct the name, or name the permission tag instead.
`each line under ## Needs approval must be` - `and one tool name or permission tag`	When the bot saved the skill, a line under Needs approval was a sentence rather than one name.	Ask it to put one name on each `-` line.
`Saved. A skill is easiest to follow when it has a one-line summary and a numbered Steps section, and its title matches its name.`	Your edit was saved, but the instructions no longer follow the skill layout — for example no numbered step is left.	Add at least one numbered step back and save again.