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A skill is a reusable, named set of instructions that Swan can follow — a written-down way of doing something, so you (or anyone in your org) don’t have to re-explain it every time. Skills show up in the dashboard under Skills (agent.getswan.com/skills), and Swan can also load and follow one during a conversation or a trigger run.

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Three kinds of skills

  • Personal skills — visible only to you. When you create a skill (agent.getswan.com/skills/new) and mark it personal, it lives in your own space (shown in the UI as your personal skills workspace, filterable with ?scope=personal) and can only be used in your own conversations and personal triggers.
  • Org skills — shared across the whole organization. Any org member can see and use them; they’re the default kind unless you mark a skill personal (filterable with ?scope=org).
  • System skills — provided by Swan itself, shared across every organization. They’re read-only: you can’t edit or delete them, but Swan can load and follow them. System skills aren’t shown in the Skills page — they work in the background rather than as something you browse. New orgs also ship with a small set of default org skills (for example, a company-qualification skill) that you can see and edit like any other org skill.

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Nesting

A skill can have sub-skills nested under it — useful for breaking a large playbook into sections (an overview skill with detailed sub-skills for specific scenarios). Sub-skills aren’t loaded automatically with the parent; Swan fetches them by name or ID when the parent skill’s instructions call for it.

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Public library skills

Swan can search a public catalog of ready-made skills hosted at gtmskills.com and install a suitable one into your organization. Ask Swan to browse the library when your existing skills don’t cover a task. After installation, Swan reads and uses the skill like any other organization skill.

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Editing and permissions

Members can create, update, delete, restore, and add files to their own personal skills. They can read organization skills but cannot create or modify them. Admins can manage organization skills and any member’s personal skills. These permissions are fixed by role; see roles and permissions. Library installations follow the same scope rule: a Member receives a personal copy, while an Admin installs the skill for the organization. Every edit to a skill’s instructions is versioned with a change summary, and past versions can be reviewed and restored from the skill’s page in the UI (https://agent.getswan.com/skills/{skillId}).

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Skill vs. trigger vs. memory

These three get confused because they all shape agent behavior, but they answer different questions:
  • A skill is a reusable how-to — instructions for performing a task, invoked by name.
  • A trigger is an automation — a source (a schedule, a webhook, a CRM event) plus instructions plus toolkits, running unattended. A trigger’s instructions can reference a skill to reuse existing know-how instead of repeating it.
  • Memory is freeform facts, not instructions — notes Swan should remember, not steps it should follow.
If you find yourself repeating the same instructions across multiple triggers or conversations, that’s the signal to turn them into a skill instead. Swan applies the same principle itself: when it gets something working that took figuring out — like a direct API integration — it documents the working recipe as an org skill so later runs and teammates reuse it.

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Common questions

Can I turn a personal skill into an org skill, or vice versa? Sometimes. An Admin can move a personal skill they own into the organization, or move an organization skill they originally created into their personal skills. Members cannot change a skill’s scope, and an Admin cannot move another member’s personal skill into the organization on that member’s behalf. Can members create their own personal skills? Yes. Members can create and manage their own personal skills, including files and installed library copies. Organization skills remain Admin-managed. Are system skills something I need to manage? No — they’re maintained by Swan and applied automatically where relevant. You can’t edit or delete them. Can I reorder skills in the sidebar? No — skills are listed in creation order (newest first); there’s no manual sort or drag-and-drop ordering. Can Swan install a ready-made skill for me? Yes. Ask Swan to browse the public skill library and install the skill that fits your task. Does a skill know how well it’s performing? No — a skill can’t see its own usage or performance metrics while running. That data, where available, lives in analytics.