A personal Skill does not need to be considered for every task. You can allow your Hand to suggest it when relevant, or require an explicit slash command. This preference controls how the Skill may be selected, not whether your Hand independently starts work.
Change the preference
- Open the Hands Console, select your Hand and go to Skills → Personal.
- Find the Skill and open its settings icon on the tile or list row.
- Under When to use it, choose one:
- Suggest when relevant: your Hand may consider this Skill when your request matches it.
- Only when I type the command: explicitly request it by entering the displayed slash command, such as /weekly-review.
- Confirm your choice is selected. Changes are saved immediately. If saving fails, the previous choice is restored and an error appears.
A manual-only Skill shows the Only when typed label in the overview. Use the copy icon next to its command if you want to paste it into a request.
Read the Skill details
The same settings dialog shows the Skill’s title, slash command, description, storage path and any loading warning. These fields describe the selected Skill; they are read-only in this dialog. For a personal Skill, When to use it is the only editable control here.
To change a personal Skill’s description or instructions, choose Open in Files, edit the corresponding SKILL.md, then choose Save in the file editor. Cancel leaves the file unchanged. Return to Skills and reopen the details to check the updated description. If saving fails, read the error and keep the editor open so you can retry without losing the draft.
Built-in Skills do not show Open in Files, a use-mode selector or a remove action. They can be inspected, but their packaged details cannot be edited from the Console.
What the options actually do
Suggest when relevant is not an instruction to run the Skill automatically. Your prompt, the Hand’s runtime support and any further permissions still matter. Only when I type the command reserves that Skill for an explicit invocation; a loosely related request does not override the preference.
These settings apply only to Personal Skills. Built in Skills can be inspected but not modified or removed in the Console. A saved Skill must also be loadable on the selected Hand. Its details may warn that workspace Skills are not loaded, SKILL.md is larger than 128 KB, or a built-in Skill already uses that name.
Troubleshooting
- No choice is shown: check you opened a personal Skill rather than a built-in one.
- Your choice reverts: read the error, check your Hand’s connection and try again.
- The slash command has no effect: check its spelling and any warning in the Skill details. Changing a preference does not install missing runtime support.
- Need to edit the description or instructions: choose Open in Files for a personal Skill, update
SKILL.mdand save it there.
Related: Add a Skill with SKILL.md and Browse and use Skills.