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A skill is a named, reusable procedure Sidekick follows. SideShift ships a few built-in ones, and your company can save its own - the way you write a weekly report, the checks you run before approving a video, how you brief a new creator. Once saved, a skill is available to everyone in the company: Sidekick picks it up when a request matches, or anyone can run it explicitly with /name. Skills are scoped to the company that saved them. The one exception is an agency sub-account, which also inherits its parent agency’s skills - see below.

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Where to find it

  • In chat, open the composer + menu and choose Skills. The Directory opens on its Skills section - the same modal Connectors opens.
  • From the Sidekick panel menu, choose Manage skills.
  • Or go straight to Sidekick → Skills.
Every one of them shows the same three groups: Your skills (editable), From your agency (read-only, if you have a parent agency account), and Built-in (read-only).

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Create a skill

1

Open Skills and click New skill

From the composer + menu → Skills, or on the Skills page.
2

Fill in the four fields

Name is the slash command. Title is the display name. Description is what Sidekick matches a request against. Instructions is the procedure itself.
3

Save

The skill is live immediately for every member of the company.
The Description is the field that matters most. It is not a summary - it is the trigger text Sidekick reads to decide whether a request calls for this skill. Write it like a good tool description: say when to use the skill, and when not to. Edit or delete a skill from its row in the same list.

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Ask Sidekick to save one

You don’t have to fill in the form. Tell Sidekick to save what you just worked through - “save that as a skill”, “remember how to do this” - and it drafts all four fields from the conversation. Nothing is written until you confirm. Sidekick shows you the draft and a six-character confirmation code, and you reply with that exact code (for example Confirm K7P2XM). The skill is saved only in that later turn, and the code expires after 15 minutes - if it lapses, ask again and confirm the fresh code. Saving under a name that already exists updates that skill, subject to the same edit permission below.

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How Sidekick uses a skill

Two routes, both available to every member:
  • Automatic - when a request matches a skill’s description, Sidekick loads the skill and follows its instructions.
  • Explicit - type / in the composer to see your skills alongside the built-ins, or send a message starting with /name to invoke one directly.
Sidekick treats your skills exactly like the built-ins once loaded.

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Who can edit and delete

Editing is not restricted to admins on purpose - the person who wrote a skill keeps control of it. If you need someone else’s skill changed and you are not an admin, ask them or an admin to make the change.

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Agency accounts

A sub-account under an agency parent also sees the agency’s skills, grouped under From your agency and marked with a badge. They work exactly like the sub-account’s own skills in chat. They are read-only from the sub-account: there are no Edit or Delete buttons, and the agency’s own account is the only place to change them. A sub-account can, however, save its own skill using the same name - its own skill then takes precedence over the inherited one for that company.

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Limits and validation

Inherited agency skills do not count toward your company’s 25.

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Reserved names

The built-in skill names are reserved and cannot be used for a custom skill:
Custom skills are an in-app Sidekick feature. They are not exposed through the SideShift MCP server: an external MCP client cannot save a skill, and invoke_skill there returns the built-in skills only. Use Sidekick in the app to create, edit, and run your company’s skills.