Skills

Skills give Rho reusable instructions for a task. Each skill lives in a SKILL.md file. Rho shows the model each skill's name and description through the skill tool. The model loads the full instructions only when it uses that skill, which leaves more context for your work.

SKILL.md format

Create a directory for the skill and add a SKILL.md file. Start the file with YAML front matter between --- lines, then write the instructions in Markdown:

---
name: inspect-logs
description: Find and summarize errors in application logs. Use when asked to inspect or triage log files.
---

Read the relevant log files with the file tools, group errors by message,
and report the most frequent failures first with file and line references.

The file has three parts:

• name (required): Use 1–64 lowercase letters, numbers, or single hyphens. The name must match the directory name. For example, inspect-logs/SKILL.md uses name: inspect-logs.
• description (required): Tell the model what the skill does and when to use it. A specific description helps the model choose the right skill.
• Body: Write the instructions after the front matter. Rho loads this text as written when the model uses the skill.

Where Rho looks for skills

Rho checks these locations in order:

built-in skills (shipped with Rho)
~/.rho/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
~/.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
<project>/.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md   (nearest directory first, up to the repository root)

If Rho finds the same skill name more than once, it uses the first copy. You can't replace a built-in skill with a user skill. Skills in your home directory take priority over project skills. Within a project, Rho starts at the working directory and searches up to the repository root.

Add a skill

You don't need an install command. Choose where the skill should live:

• ~/.rho/skills makes it available only to Rho.
• ~/.agents/skills shares it with Rho and other agents that use this layout.
• <project>/.agents/skills shares it with everyone who works in that repository.

Create a directory whose name matches the skill name, then add SKILL.md:

mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills/inspect-logs
touch ~/.agents/skills/inspect-logs/SKILL.md

Open the new file and follow the format above. To add a third-party skill, copy its directory into one of these locations. Read its instructions before you use it.

Built-in skills

Rho includes three built-in skills:

Skill	Use
rho-config	Configure Rho, including models, providers, credentials, aliases, permission mode, and direct config-file edits
rho-diagnostics	Inspect harness diagnostics
rho-agent-creator	Define an agent through a guided questionnaire, including runtime: claude-cli Claude Code specialists
rho-workflow-authoring	Write and operate deterministic, resumable Starlark workflows

See Tools and workspace for details about the skill tool. See Agents and delegation to learn how to define agents, including the agent definition schema.