Skills are reusable instruction packages that the AI can activate when a task matches their description. They extend what designs built with your Design System can do, beyond the always-on guidance in Rules.
A skill is a SKILL.md package with a name and a description. The description tells the AI when to reach for the skill; the body holds the specialized instructions it should follow once activated. Unlike Rules (which apply to every generation), skills are pulled in only when they’re relevant to what you’re asking for.
Adding a Skill
Open your Design System and go to the Skills section. You have two options:
Create a new skill
Click New Skill to scaffold a SKILL.md package you can edit in place. Give it a clear name and a description that states exactly when the AI should use it, then write the instructions in the body.
The description is the most important part. The AI matches the user’s request
against it to decide whether to activate the skill, so be specific about the
scenarios it covers.
Install a skill
Click Install Skill and paste an install command. Only the npx skills add <repo> --skill <name> format is supported. Repos must be hosted on github.com, gitlab.com, or bitbucket.org (or use the GitHub owner/repo shorthand).
npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills --skill frontend-design
Managing Skills
The Skills section lists every package in your Design System with its name and description. Open a skill to edit its files, or use the kebab menu to delete a package. Skills that fail validation are flagged as Invalid so you can fix the SKILL.md frontmatter.
Like everything else in a Design System, skills are versioned with the Design System, so changes roll out when you publish a new version. 
