Skills

What is a Skill?

A Skill is a reusable capability package: a folder containing a SKILL.md file plus any scripts, reference documents, and assets the skill needs. Skills follow the Agent Skills open standard, so a skill authored for one compliant runtime can be imported into Orca. When a skill is attached to an agent, its instructions and resources become available to that agent during a run. Skills that ship executable scripts or shell steps run inside the agent’s sandbox — an isolated per-agent compute environment — rather than in the conductor process.

Skills are the packaging format for capabilities (instructions + code + references). To connect an agent to an external SaaS tool instead, see Connected Apps and MCP Integration.

Anatomy of a Skill

Part	Purpose
`SKILL.md`	The entry point — describes what the skill does and how the agent should use it.
Metadata	Name, description, and tags used for discovery in the catalog.
Resource files	Scripts, reference docs, and assets, each addressed by its path within the skill.
Usage tracking	Orca records which agents currently use a skill, so you can see its blast radius before changing or removing it.

Resource files are readable and writable through the API by path:

# Read a resource file inside a skill
curl https://api.orcapods.ai/api/skills/pdf-toolkit/resources/scripts/extract.py \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ao_..."

Catalogs: tenant and platform

Orca maintains two catalogs:

Tenant catalog — skills your organization has imported or created. Managed under Skills in the dashboard, or via GET /api/skills.
Platform catalog — a curated, platform-level set of skills that Orca ships and maintains. These are available to every tenant as a starting point.

Importing a Skill (two-phase)

Importing a skill package is a deliberate two-phase flow so nothing lands in your catalog until you have seen exactly what it will do.

Dry-run validation

Submit the package to POST /api/skills/import-package. Orca validates it against the Agent Skills open standard and returns a report that flags:

whether the skill requires a sandbox (because it runs scripts), and
any name collisions with skills already in your catalog.

Nothing is written yet — this is a preview.

Commit

If the report looks right, confirm with POST /api/skills/import-package/commit to write the skill into your tenant catalog.

The dashboard runs this same two-phase flow for you when you upload a skill — you review the validation summary, then click through to commit.

Attaching a Skill to an agent

Skills are attached per-agent (per profile):

curl -X POST https://api.orcapods.ai/api/profiles/support-bot/skills/pdf-toolkit \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ao_..."

curl -X DELETE https://api.orcapods.ai/api/profiles/support-bot/skills/pdf-toolkit \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ao_..."

A skill that runs scripts or shell tools needs the agent to have a sandbox enabled on its profile. Attaching such a skill to an agent with no sandbox will leave those steps unable to execute — configure a sandbox first. See Sandboxes.

Manage skills in the UI

Import, browse, and attach skills from the dashboard.

Sandboxes

The compute environment where skill scripts run.

Profiles

Where skills are attached to an agent.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

What is a Skill?

Anatomy of a Skill

Catalogs: tenant and platform

Importing a Skill (two-phase)

Attaching a Skill to an agent

Next

Manage skills in the UI

Sandboxes

Profiles

​What is a Skill?

​Anatomy of a Skill

​Catalogs: tenant and platform

​Importing a Skill (two-phase)

​Attaching a Skill to an agent

​Next

Manage skills in the UI

Sandboxes

Profiles

What is a Skill?

Anatomy of a Skill

Catalogs: tenant and platform

Importing a Skill (two-phase)

Attaching a Skill to an agent

Next