Skills¶

Skills extend Nova with reusable capabilities. A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file that describes what the skill does, when to use it, and which tools it needs.

Finding Skills¶

Ask Nova to list available skills:

What skills do you have?

Or use the /install-skill command in the TUI.

Installing Skills¶

From ClawHub (the community skill repository):

Can you install the "diagram" skill?

The agent calls install_skill to download and install it.

From the TUI, type the command in chat:

/install-skill diagram

Using Skills¶

Once installed, Nova automatically includes skill summaries in its system prompt. When a task matches a skill's description, the agent loads the full skill content and follows its instructions.

Creating Custom Skills¶

Skills live in ~/.nova/skills/<skill-name>/. A minimal skill:

~/.nova/skills/my-skill/
  SKILL.md
  scripts/
  references/

SKILL.md Format¶

name: My Skill
description: What this skill does
allowed_tools: shell, read, write
compatibility: gpt-4o, gemma4:26b

Full instructions for the agent go here...

The agent loads the full SKILL.md content when it decides the skill is relevant.