Skills

A Skill is a named, lattice-aware unit of capability. Where most frameworks tie a “skill” or “tool” to one agent that calls it directly, Axocoatl Skills are routed by the lattice — they declare what events they emit and react to, and the system wires them automatically.

Anatomy

- id: code-review-checklist
  name: "Code Review Checklist"
  description: "Structured 12-point review."
  emits: ["ReviewComplete", "BlockingIssueFound"]
  reacts_to: ["CodeReady", "PullRequestOpened"]
  agents: [reviewer, coder]
  prompt: |
    Review the code against: correctness, edge cases, error handling,
    performance, security, style, naming, tests. Return JSON with
    `issues` and `severity`.

Five knobs:

• emits — events this Skill publishes when it completes.
• reacts_to — events that, when published by anyone, fire this Skill.
• agents — which agents hold this Skill. Any of them can win the auction when the Skill fires.
• prompt — what the agent gets told when this Skill activates.
• description — surfaces in the dashboard.

The auction

When PullRequestOpened lands on the lattice, every Skill that lists it in reacts_to is a candidate. For code-review-checklist, the lattice finds two holders (reviewer, coder). It runs a quick auction:

• Which holder has the lower current token usage?
• Which holder’s status is idle vs. running?
• Which holder’s model has higher capability?

The winner fires the Skill. The loser stays idle. You don’t pre-assign.

Manual fire

In the dashboard’s Skills tab, click any Skill → Fire this Skill. This publishes the Skill’s emit events to the lattice. Anything that reacts to them activates.

From the CLI:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/skills/code-review-checklist/fire

Why this matters

The lattice routing is what makes Axocoatl composable. Add a new agent that also holds an existing Skill — no rewiring. Move a Skill from one agent to another — the lattice routes there next time. Add a new event that someone reacts to — fires automatically.

You’re not assembling a graph by hand. You’re declaring intent, and the lattice does the routing.