# `skills` Source: [`src/skills.ts`](https://github.com/AI-for-dev/combo/blob/main/src/skills.ts) The skills an agent may load, and where they are looked up. A skill is **named in a definition, never inherited from the machine**: `skills:` is an allowlist exactly like `tools:`, so what an agent can do stays readable in its own file. Only the *lookup* reaches outside, nearest first: the skill shipped beside the definition, then the repository's, then the user's. Whoever is closest to the work wins the name. pi does the rest: the system prompt carries a name, a description and a path, and the model opens `SKILL.md` itself with `read`. That is why a declared skill the model cannot reach is a configuration error rather than a silence at runtime: a flow's validation reports it, and spawn throws it. ## `resolveSkills` *function* ```typescript export function resolveSkills(agent: Agent, cwd: string, tools: readonly string[]): Skill[] { /* … */ } ``` Resolves what an agent's `skills:` names, in the order it named them. Throws rather than dropping one: a missing skill is a typo in a definition, and finding out through prose that quietly lacks a step costs more than failing at spawn. A TypeScript workflow has no validation before it runs, so this is where it finds out; a flow found out before its first spawn. ## `SkillDir` *type* ```typescript export type SkillDir = { /** Absolute path of the directory. It legitimately may not exist. */ dir: string; /** Where a skill found here came from: `"agent"`, `"project"` or `"user"`. */ source: string; }; ``` A directory to search, and the label pi records for what it finds there.