Create a skill in the Workshop
The Skill Workshop, templates, the editor, validation, saving, re-embedding.
The Skill Workshop is Cerevisor's in-app editor for building new skills or editing existing ones. Switch to it from the title bar (the Workshop icon).
License gate: The Workshop is gated on Trial / Paid tiers. Free-tier users see an upgrade splash instead of the Workshop. Skills already saved to disk continue to run for agents in your workflows; only creating and editing skills in the Workshop is paid.
Workshop layout
Two columns:
| Column | Content |
|---|---|
| Skill List (left) | Every skill Cerevisor found, grouped by category. Click a skill to load it into the editor. |
| Editor (right) | The active skill's SKILL.md editor, plus metadata fields. Validation messages appear inline beneath the field they describe. |
Creating a new skill
Click + New skill above the skill list. The Workshop's create dialog offers three entry tabs:
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| Generate | Describe what you need in plain language; Cerevisor's configured provider drafts a SKILL.md you can edit. Needs an Anthropic or OpenAI-compatible provider. On any other provider the tab shows a "switch provider" prompt instead. |
| Template | Pick one of five hand-rolled scaffolds (see Templates below). |
| Blank | One click. Drops you into the editor with the bare-minimum SKILL.md frontmatter so you can build from scratch. |
For Template, you give the skill a name (kebab-case, becomes the folder name and name: value) and a short What does it do? purpose line. For Generate, you describe the skill in the prompt box.
New skills are saved under ~/.cerevisor/skills/. The skill is held in the editor until you save it; you're dropped straight into the editor to refine it.
The editor
The editor has these sections:
Metadata
- Name: text input. The
name:frontmatter value. - Description: textarea. The
description:frontmatter value, capped at 500 characters with a live count. This is the most important field for skill discoverability: see What are skills?.
The metadata bar also shows the skill's provider-compatibility badge ("Universal", "Claude only", …) — see Skill compatibility with providers.
Body editor
A plain text editor for the body of SKILL.md. Markdown, monospaced. Use the focus-mode control (Editor / Split / Preview) to show a live rendered markdown preview alongside or in place of the editor.
Saving
There's an explicit Save button in the bottom bar. An "Unsaved changes" indicator appears while you have edits pending, and the Save button carries a dot until you save.
Delete
A Delete button in the bottom bar removes the skill. It asks for a "Delete?" confirmation first. Skills living in a read-only harness folder cannot be deleted from the Workshop.
Validation
The validation pane updates as you type. It surfaces:
| Severity | Examples |
|---|---|
| Error | Missing YAML frontmatter (--- delimiters). Missing name: or description:. A name that isn't lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. |
| Warning | Description doesn't start with "Use when...". Description over 500 characters. Missing an ## Overview section. |
Warnings don't block saving; they indicate poor discoverability. Fix errors before relying on the skill — a missing name or description keeps it from being surfaced properly.
Templates
The five built-in templates available under the Template tab:
| Template | Best for |
|---|---|
| Development Tool | Coding, debugging, and testing patterns. Scaffolds before/after examples, core patterns, and common-mistakes sections. |
| Documentation Generator | Creating docs, reports, and other formatted output. Scaffolds document structure, formatting guidelines, and reusable templates. |
| Creative Skill | Art, design, and content creation. Scaffolds design principles, style guides, and a creative-process walkthrough. |
| Engineering Pattern | Prompts, workflows, and architectural approaches. Scaffolds architecture diagrams, configuration, error-handling, and monitoring. |
| Utility | General-purpose helper skills for repetitive tasks. Scaffolds basic and advanced usage examples. |
Pick the template closest to what you're building; you'll edit out what you don't need. If none fits, use the Blank tab instead.
Re-embedding
When you save a skill that changes its description or tags, Cerevisor invalidates the cached semantic embedding for that skill. The next skill scan (or the next launch) re-embeds it.
You can force a re-embed of every skill via Settings → Skills → Re-embed all skills. Useful after upgrading the embedder or after bulk edits.
Editing an existing skill
Click any skill in the Workshop's left list. The editor loads it.
You can edit skills installed under ~/.claude/skills/ too. Be aware: these are often skills you installed from a published source, editing them locally means your changes will be overwritten if you reinstall.
For local-only customizations, fork the skill: create a new skill in ~/.cerevisor/skills/ with a similar name (e.g. my-skill-customized), copy the content, edit there.
Sharing a skill
Just zip the skill folder and send it. The recipient unzips into their ~/.claude/skills/ (or ~/.cerevisor/skills/) and the skill appears on next launch.
Skills are intended to be portable. They don't reference machine-specific paths. They don't bundle credentials.
A note on writing good skills
The single best resource for writing well-tuned skills is the existing skill collection. Browse the Workshop, read a few skills that seem similar to what you're building, mirror their patterns.
The writing-skills skill (if you have it installed) walks through this in depth.