Skills

Skills are modular instruction sets that extend Agentforce Vibes' capabilities for specific tasks. Each skill packages detailed guidance, workflows, and optional resources that Agentforce Vibes loads only when relevant to your request. Salesforce Skills are a set of Salesforce-specific skills that come out of the box with Agentforce Vibes. Unlike rules, which are always active, skills load on-demand so they don't consume context when you work on unrelated tasks.

To enable or disable the Skills feature from Settings:

Select File > Preferences > Settings (Windows or Linux) or Code > Settings > Settings (macOS).
Under Agentforce Vibes, select Enable Skills.

Skills are enabled by default.

Progressive loading — Skills use a tiered loading model to maximize efficiency: metadata loads at startup, full instructions load when triggered, and bundled resources load only when needed.
On-demand activation — Agentforce Vibes matches your request to skill descriptions and activates only the skills that apply.
Modular structure — Each skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file plus optional supporting files live in references/, assets/, or scripts/ subdirectories in the skills folder.

Skills use progressive loading to control token usage:

Level	When Loaded	Token Cost	Content
Metadata	Always (at startup)	~100 tokens per skill	Name and description from YAML frontmatter
Instructions	When skill is triggered	Under 5k tokens	`SKILL.md` body with instructions and guidance
Resources	As needed	Effectively unlimited	Bundled files accessed via `read_file` or executed scripts

When you send a message, Agentforce Vibes sees a list of available skills with their descriptions. If your request matches a skill's description, Agentforce Vibes activates it, which loads the full instructions from SKILL.md.

Open the Skills menu — Click the ⚖️icon ( at the bottom of the Agentforce Vibes panel, to the left of the model selector. Switch to the Skills tab.
Create a new skill — Click "New skill…" and enter a name (for example, apex-create-class). Agentforce Vibes creates a skill directory with a template SKILL.md file. The name of the skill and the skill file name must match.
Write your skill instructions — Edit the SKILL.md file: update the description field to specify when the skill should trigger, add detailed instructions in the body, and optionally add supporting files in references/, templates/, or scripts/ subdirectories.

You can also create skills manually by creating the directory structure in your file system. Place skill directories in .a4drules/skills/ (workspace) or ~/.a4drules/skills/ (global), and then Agentforce Vibes detects them automatically.

Every skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter:

The SKILL.md file has two parts: metadata and instructions.

Required fields:

name must exactly match the directory name.
description tells Agentforce Vibes when to use the skill (max 1024 characters).

Use lowercase with hyphens (kebab-case) and be descriptive about what the skill does.

Good names: apex-class-generator, lwc-component-creator, sfdx-deploy-metadata, soql-query-runner

Avoid: sf (too vague), my_skill (uses underscores and isn't descriptive), DeployToOrg(uses PascalCase rather than kebab-case), misc-helpers (too generic)

The description determines when Agentforce Vibes activates the skill. A vague description means the skill may not trigger when you expect it to.

Good descriptions are specific and actionable:

Weak descriptions leave too much ambiguity:

When writing descriptions, start with what the skill does (action verbs), include trigger phrases users might say, and mention specific file types, tools, or domains. Test your descriptions by trying different phrasings of requests to see if the skill triggers.

Skills can include additional files that Agentforce Vibes accesses only when needed:

references/ — Use for information that's too detailed for SKILL.md or only relevant in specific situations, such as advanced configuration, troubleshooting, reference material, or platform-specific instructions.
assets/ — Use when your skill creates configuration files, boilerplate code, or structured documents.
scripts/ — Use for deterministic operations where you want consistent behavior: validation, data processing, complex calculations, API interactions. Scripts are token-efficient because only their output enters context, not the code itself.

These examples show how to reference bundled files in your SKILL.md instructions:

Agentforce Vibes reads documentation files using read_file when the instructions reference them. Scripts can be executed directly, and only the script output enters the context window.

By default, skills are saved here:

Location	Scope
`.a4drules/skills/`	Project (recommended)
`$HOME/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage`	Global (macOS)
`$HOME/.config/Code/User/globalStorage`	Global (Linux)
`%APPDATA%\Code\User\globalStorage`	Global (Windows)

When a global skill and project skill have the same name, the global skill takes precedence. Version control your project skills by committing .a4drules/skills/ to your source repository. Then your team can share, review, and improve them together.

Every skill has a toggle to enable or disable it. Skills are enabled by default.

Token budget — Contain the size of SKILL.md. If your skill needs more content, split it into separate files in a references/ directory and reference them from the main instructions.
Put important information first — Agentforce Vibes reads the file sequentially, so front-load common cases. Use clear section headers such as "## Error Handling" or "## Configuration" so Agentforce Vibes can scan for relevant sections.
Use scripts for deterministic operations — Prefer scripts for validation, formatting, and complex computations. Use instructions for flexible guidance that adapts to context.

Rules — Always-active guidance that applies across your workspace.