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Overview

Skills are reusable instruction bundles that extend how TierZero handles specific kinds of work. The new Skills workspace lets you create and manage skills for your organization.

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Where to Find It

Open Skills from the left navigation. You need the read:skills permission to view the page and write:skills to create, edit, or delete skills.

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Skill Types

TierZero supports two kinds of skills:
  • Managed in TierZero: You author and edit the SKILL.md content directly in TierZero
  • Sync from GitHub: TierZero reads a skill from a directory in a GitHub repository

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Managed Skills

Managed skills are best when you want to create or maintain the skill entirely inside TierZero. When you create a managed skill:
  1. Click Add Skill
  2. Choose Manage in TierZero
  3. Enter a name and description
  4. TierZero creates a starter SKILL.md
  5. Edit the raw markdown and save
Managed skills are edited as full SKILL.md files, including frontmatter.

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Required Format

A managed skill must be valid SKILL.md content and must start with frontmatter like: 
---
name: debug-ooms
description: Use when a service or job is experiencing out-of-memory issues and you need to identify the cause, verify whether memory growth is expected, and suggest the safest fix.
---

## When to Use

Invoke this skill when:
- A pod or process is being OOMKilled
- Memory usage is growing unexpectedly
- A deployment started hitting memory limits after a release

## Investigation Steps

1. Confirm which workload is OOMing and when it started
2. Compare current memory usage against recent deploys or traffic changes
3. Check whether the spike is caused by expected load, a memory leak, or an undersized memory limit
4. Identify the safest mitigation, such as rollback, memory limit adjustment, or code-level fixes

## Common Pitfalls

- Short-lived spikes can look like leaks if you only inspect a narrow time window
- Raising memory limits without checking request volume can hide the real issue
At minimum:
  • The file must start with ---
  • The frontmatter must have a closing ---
  • The frontmatter must contain both name and description
When you save a managed skill, TierZero re-validates the file and re-extracts the skill name and description from the frontmatter.

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GitHub-Synced Skills

GitHub-synced skills are best when you already keep skills in your codebase and want TierZero to reference them from there. When you create a GitHub skill:
  1. Click Add Skill
  2. Choose Sync from GitHub
  3. Select a connected GitHub organization
  4. Select a repository
  5. Enter the directory path that contains the skill
  6. Review the detected name and description
  7. Save the skill

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GitHub Requirements

  • You must have an approved GitHub integration connected in TierZero
  • The selected directory must exist in the repository
  • The directory must contain a SKILL.md file
  • That SKILL.md must contain valid frontmatter with name and description

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Name and Description Overrides

For GitHub-synced skills, the UI lets you override the displayed name and description in TierZero. Those overrides are used when the skill is loaded by TierZero, even though the source files come from GitHub.

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What to Put in a Skill

A good skill should teach TierZero how to handle a repeatable class of work. Useful examples include:
  • Step-by-step debugging playbooks for a recurring failure mode
  • Deployment or rollback procedures
  • Domain-specific investigation guidance
  • Safe operating rules for sensitive systems
  • How to interpret provider-specific or internal resource names
Skills should be more focused than your main Instructions page. Put broad org or team context in Instructions, and put task-specific guidance in a skill.

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Editing and Deleting

  • Managed skills: Edit the raw SKILL.md content directly in the editor
  • GitHub skills: Edit the name, description, GitHub org, repository, or directory path in the form view
  • Delete: Remove a skill from the Skills workspace
For GitHub skills, changing the repository, directory path, or GitHub integration triggers re-validation.

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Best Practices

1. Keep each skill narrow
  • One skill should cover one workflow or one operational domain
  • Split large skills instead of turning them into general-purpose manuals
2. Make the description precise
  • The description helps TierZero decide when the skill applies
  • Write it as a clear statement of when the skill should be used
3. Prefer procedures over reference dumps
  • Put the critical workflow, decision points, and caveats in the skill
  • Link out or summarize long reference material instead of copying everything in