Your First Skill

Skills are prompt-based agents that shape how PIE responds. They come in two modes:

• Always-on skills are injected into every conversation (personality, formatting, tone)
• On-demand skills (prompt tools) are invoked by the AI only when relevant (domain expertise, analysis)

What Skills Do

• Add personality traits (always-on)
• Set response formatting rules (always-on)
• Provide domain expertise on demand (prompt tool)
• Give specialized analysis capabilities (prompt tool)

---

Always-On Skills

Always-on skills modify how PIE responds. They're lightweight prompts included in every conversation.

Create an Always-On Skill

1. Go to Agents in PIE
2. Click Create Agent
3. Select Skill tier
4. Fill in the details:

Name: friendly-assistant
Display Name: Friendly Assistant
Description: Makes PIE respond in a warm, friendly manner

Prompt (the body of your skill):

You are a friendly and warm assistant. Always:
- Start responses with a friendly greeting when appropriate
- Use conversational language
- Show enthusiasm when helping
- Offer encouragement and positive feedback
- End with a helpful follow-up question when relevant

Keep your personality consistent but natural - don't be over-the-top.

Manifest:

{
  "trigger": "always"
}

How Always-On Skills Work

1. The skill's prompt is added to PIE's system prompt
2. It's included in every conversation
3. Multiple skills combine together

---

On-Demand Skills (Prompt Tools)

On-demand skills provide domain expertise that the AI invokes only when relevant. Instead of burning tokens on every message, the knowledge is delivered as a tool result when the AI decides it's needed.

This is ideal for:

• Legal document analysis (NDAs, contracts)
• Code review checklists
• Compliance frameworks
• Industry-specific expertise
• Any knowledge that's deep but not always relevant

How Prompt Tools Work

1. User asks: "Can you review this NDA for me?"
2. AI sees the analyze_nda tool in its available tools
3. AI calls the tool with the document text
4. PIE returns the skill's prompt (expert knowledge) as the tool result
5. AI uses that expertise to formulate its analysis

No code runs. No sandbox. The prompt template IS the tool result.

Create an On-Demand Skill

The .pie file format is the same as always-on skills, but the manifest includes a tool: definition:

---
name: nda-analyzer
displayName: NDA Analyzer
description: Expert NDA analysis with risk assessment and recommendations
tier: skill
version: 1.0.0
manifest:
  trigger: auto
  tool:
    name: analyze_nda
    description: >-
      Analyze a Non-Disclosure Agreement for risks, unusual clauses, red flags,
      and missing protections. Call when a user asks to review an NDA.
    parameters:
      type: object
      properties:
        document_text:
          type: string
          description: The full text of the NDA to analyze
        focus_areas:
          type: string
          description: "Optional: specific concerns like 'non-compete scope'"
      required:
        - document_text
---
You are an expert contract attorney specializing in NDAs. When analyzing:

## Structure your analysis as:
1. **Agreement Type**: Mutual vs one-way, identify the parties
2. **Key Terms**: Duration, scope, exclusions
3. **Risk Assessment**: Rate overall risk as Low / Medium / High
4. **Red Flags**: Non-standard or unusually broad clauses
5. **Missing Protections**: Standard clauses that are absent
6. **Recommendations**: Specific suggested modifications

## Pay special attention to:
- Overly broad definitions of "confidential information"
- Non-compete or non-solicitation clauses hidden in NDAs
- Asymmetric obligations
- Jurisdiction and governing law implications

The key differences from an always-on skill:

	Always-On Skill	On-Demand Skill (Prompt Tool)
Manifest	{ "trigger": "always" }	Has a tool: definition with name, description, parameters
When active	Every conversation	Only when the AI decides to call it
Token cost	Paid on every message	Only when invoked
Best for	Personality, tone, formatting	Domain expertise, analysis, knowledge bases
Body content	Short behavioral prompt	Can be very large (knowledge bases, frameworks)

When to Use Which

Use always-on when the skill is:

• A personality or tone modifier
• A formatting preference
• Short (under ~500 tokens)
• Relevant to virtually every conversation

Use on-demand when the skill is:

• Domain-specific expertise
• A large knowledge base
• Only relevant to certain topics
• Something with clear input parameters (a document to analyze, a topic to research)

Tips for Good Skills

1. Be specific - Clear instructions work better than vague ones
2. Don't conflict - Avoid always-on skills that contradict each other
3. Keep always-on skills lightweight - Save large knowledge bases for on-demand
4. Write good tool descriptions - For on-demand skills, the description tells the AI when to invoke it
5. Define clear parameters - Help the AI understand what inputs your skill needs

Next Steps

Now that you've created a skill, let's build something more powerful: Your First Tool.