Agent Skills

Guide how agents approach tasks with custom skills in your repository.

Skills are instructions that live in your repository and guide how agents approach work. They help agents follow multi-step processes like research, planning, implementation, and review instead of doing everything in a single pass.

How it works

Place skills in the dotfile directory for your coding agent at the root of your repository:

• .claude/ for Claude Code
• .codex/ for Codex
• .opencode/ for OpenCode
• .cursor/ for Cursor

The agent picks up these skills when working on tasks in that repo. You need to instruct the agent to use a skill, either in the task description or after a PR is opened via the feedback loop:

@tembo Use the implementation skill for this task

@tembo Now use the code-review skill to review your changes

Example

A skill that guides the agent through a structured implementation flow:

# Implementation Skill

1. Research the codebase to understand existing patterns
2. Create a plan with specific files and changes
3. Implement the plan following project conventions
4. Run tests and fix any failures
5. Self-review the diff before opening a PR

What skills are good for

• Enforcing a research-then-implement workflow
• Requiring test coverage before opening a PR
• Defining code review checklists the agent runs against its own output
• Setting quality thresholds for different task types

What’s coming

We’re building first-party skill support and planning mode so Tembo can handle work in staged steps:

Research → Plan → Implement → Review → Iterate

This will improve PR quality on larger tasks, where today the agent may need a few iterations before the output is merge-ready. Rule files and skills in dotfile directories are the best way to guide agents today.