Create Your Own

Build custom skill playbooks by describing the procedure you want Chalie to follow.

Creating a skill through conversation

The simplest way to create a skill is to ask Chalie in natural language:

  • “Create a skill for tracking my weekly expenses”
  • “Save a playbook for how I like to research new topics”
  • “Add a skill called Morning Briefing that checks weather, calendar, and news”

Chalie gathers the details it needs:

  1. Title — a short noun phrase describing the skill (e.g. “Weekly Expense Review”)
  2. Use for — one sentence describing when this skill should be triggered (e.g. “reviewing and categorising weekly spending against a budget”)
  3. Steps — the numbered procedure Chalie should follow, referencing specific tools where relevant
  4. Tags — optional keywords to improve discoverability (e.g. “finance, budget, expenses”)

Writing good steps

Each step should be a clear, actionable instruction. Reference specific tools so Chalie knows what to use:

1. Use memory to recall the user's budget categories and spending limits.
2. Ask the user for the time period to review (default: last 7 days).
3. Use search to find recent transaction data or bank statements.
4. Categorise each transaction against the stored budget categories.
5. Use document to save a summary table: category, budgeted, actual, variance.
6. Highlight any category where actual spending exceeds the budget by more than 10%.
7. Store updated spending totals in memory for next week's comparison.

Good steps say which tool to use and what output to produce. Avoid vague instructions like “analyse the data” — say what analysis means in concrete terms.

Editing a skill

To update an existing skill:

  • “Edit my Weekly Expense Review skill to also flag recurring subscriptions”
  • “Update the Morning Briefing skill — add a step to check for package deliveries”

Only the fields you mention will change. The version number increments automatically on each edit.

Deleting a skill

  • “Delete the skill I created for meal planning”
  • “Remove my Track Flights skill”

Only user-created skills can be deleted. Curated skills can be disabled but not removed.

Listing your skills

  • “Show me all my custom skills”
  • “List the skills I’ve created”
  • “What custom playbooks do I have?”

This shows both curated and user-created skills with their current status.

Tips for effective skills

  • Be specific about outputs. “Save a summary” is vague; “save a table with columns for X, Y, Z” tells Chalie exactly what to produce.
  • Reference tools by name. Steps that say “use search to…” or “check memory for…” route Chalie to the right tool without ambiguity.
  • Include defaults. If a step involves a time period, quantity, or preference, state the default so Chalie can proceed without asking.
  • Keep it focused. A skill that tries to do everything ends up being matched to everything. One skill per workflow keeps discovery accurate.
  • Add tags. Tags improve search matching. Include domain keywords, synonyms, and related concepts.