For One Person
For a TeamSet up what your agent does · Part 1 of 3
Skills: what your agent can do
Skill, routine, or personality: which one you want, and how skills work.
This guide is also in Archie: press Resources in the sidebar, then Guides.
On this page
Your agent’s page has a tab for each kind of add-on:
- A skill is one thing your agent can do, like reading your calendar, used whenever a message calls for it.
- A routine runs a skill on a schedule and sends the result to the one chat your agent posts in.
- A personality is how your agent talks: its manner, and the rules it always follows.
| Add-on | What sets it off | Works while you’re away | Needs something else first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skill | Something you say | Only when a routine runs it | no |
| Routine | The clock | yes | A skill for it to run |
Personality is on for every reply, so it has no row. A routine runs with nobody watching, so it is the one that can spend money while you sleep.
What a skill is#
Start with skills. Your agent picks the one that fits your message, so you never name one or turn it on. Leave the Backup words box empty; it only matters if that fails.
Marketplace skills keep their instructions private, but each has an Anything else box for your own rules. To write your own, open Build a skill on the left of the Skills tab.
If a skill never steps in#
Check it’s on the Skills tab, then ask for the thing itself: “What have I got on Thursday?” works better than “can you manage my calendar?”
A step that no longer matches your screen? The other company may have changed its site since we last checked. Tell us which step and we will fix the guide in Archie and here.