Skills

You figure out the right order to cut a release: commit the submodules first, then move the parent pointer. You get it wrong once, learn the lesson, and from then on you just do it. It lives in your head, not in any document.

A Skill is what happens when Mem captures that way of working and hands it to your AI as a procedure it can follow later.

What a Skill is

A Skill is a repeatable way of performing a task, written down so an agent can do it the way you would. The useful ones are small and specific: an order of operations, a safety check, a release gotcha, a review habit, a debugging move.

It is not a saved prompt, and it is not a standing rule. A standing rule ("keep answers short") belongs in Context as a Rule. A Skill is the how of a task, the step a capable stand-in would get wrong without your experience.

Skills are also not auto-generated checklists. A good model can already write a plausible-looking process. The point of a Skill is to carry the part that only came from your real work, the thing that is not obvious until you have done it. Every Skill traces back to the work that earned it, and every Skill stays off until you turn it on.

How a Skill is born

There are three ways a Skill comes to exist, and all three flow into the same lifecycle.

1. Suggested. As part of background intelligence, Mem looks for repeated ways of working in your memories and threads. When the same procedure shows up across separate occasions, it proposes a Skill, with the source moments attached as evidence. This is why a memory filed as a procedure matters: typed procedures are what the suggestion pass reads first. See knowledge evolution for how memories get their type.

2. From scratch. You can author a Skill directly by describing what you want. Mem asks one question, drafts the procedure, and shows it back to you to review. You can bring in your own threads, sources, or notes as material.

3. Imported. If you already keep skill files for an agent host (a SKILL.md and its bundle), you can enroll them. The body is kept verbatim and then flows into the same draft, verify, and improve loop as everything else.

However it starts, a Skill compiles into a small bundle: the procedure itself as a SKILL.md, plus any optional scripts, references, and evaluation cases. It is compiled, not merely stored, so the version your AI reads is consistent no matter where the Skill came from.

What the trust badge tells you

Once a Skill is on, your agent follows it for real, so before you turn one on you want to know it actually works. Every Skill shows a trust badge so you can tell at a glance how far it has been tested:

• Checked means it passed one test. It works, but on a single example.
• Proven means it passed two or more, so you can count on it across different situations.

Mem runs these tests for you, using examples drawn from the same work the Skill came from, so you do not have to set anything up. When you open a Skill, the badge is the quick answer to "can I rely on this yet?"

How your AI uses a Skill

A Skill is only useful if the agents you already work with can read it. When you turn a Skill on, Mem materializes it as real files and registers it with your connected hosts through each host's native mechanism, for example ~/.claude/skills for Claude Code, or the equivalent location for Codex and other agents. The format is the universal SKILL.md convention, so one Skill works across hosts.

The agent then reads the Skill the same way it reads any of its own skills. One agent learning it means the rest can use it. The host is just the runtime; the Skill, and the trust behind it, stays with you.

Turning a Skill off keeps it but stops materializing it, which is different from removing it. Both are reversible.

Sharpening a Skill

You can ask Mem to sharpen a Skill over time. When you do, it tries a revision and tests it against the version you already have, using examples drawn from the Skill's own evidence.

It only keeps the change if the new version tests better. If nothing beats what you have, it keeps nothing and tells you so. Sharpening can improve a Skill, but it will not quietly swap in something worse, so it is always safe to ask.

How Skills relate to the rest of Mem

Skills sit alongside the other things Mem keeps, each with a different job:

• A Memory is something you know. A Skill is something your AI can do. A memory typed as a procedure is the most common raw material for a Skill.
• A Crystal synthesizes stable reference knowledge when several sources converge. A Skill is closer in spirit, also compiled rather than raw, but it produces an executable procedure instead of a reference article.
• A Rule in Context shapes how an agent behaves in general. A Skill shapes how it performs one specific task.

What you see

Skills live in the Skills view. The home shows your active Skills and any suggestions waiting for you, each suggestion carrying the evidence from your own work that prompted it. Opening a Skill shows the procedure as the main content, its trust state, and where it came from. Turning one on, off, or removing it is always your call.

Next steps

• Background intelligence covers when skill suggestions run and the budget that governs them
• Knowledge evolution explains how memories get the procedure type that suggestions read first
• Context is where standing rules live, the behavior layer that sits next to Skills