skills

your agent arrives able to browse the web, run code and manage files. everything beyond that is a skill: a capability installed on its machine that you switch on from the dashboard. every plan sees the same catalog, switching one on takes up to a minute, and this page explains the three kinds so the catalog makes sense when you open it.

what kinds of skills are there?

built in. three things your agent can do before you touch anything: browse the web, run code, and read and write files on its own machine. these are not switches; they are simply what it is.

switch on. skills you enable from instaclaw.io/skills. a few examples of the shape, not the whole list: web search, financial analysis, brand and design work, email outreach, a language tutor, competitive research, social media drafting, and video generation. each one is a set of instructions and tools your agent installs on its machine when you enable it.

connected accounts. integrations where your agent works inside a service you already use. you sign in to that service once and your agent has access from then on. today that includes GitHub, Google Workspace, Notion and Instagram, and Shopify with an api key from your store.

the catalog at instaclaw.io/skills is the source of truth for what exists right now. this page describes how it works rather than listing it, because the list changes and this page should not go stale when it does.

does my plan change which skills i get?

no. every plan gets the same catalog. there is no skill that unlocks at Pro or Power. what a higher plan changes is how much your agent can do in a day, which matters more when it is running several skills at once, and plans and billing explains that.

how do i turn one on?

open instaclaw.io/skills, find the skill, and enable it. behind that click your agent installs the skill on its own machine and restarts, so allow up to a minute before you try it. when it is ready, just ask; there is no command to learn:

search the web for the three best-reviewed standing desks under $400 and give me the short version

look at my last five GitHub pull requests and tell me which one has been open longest

if you ask for something a skill would do before that skill is on, your agent tells you rather than pretending.

which ones need something from me?

a sign-in. the connected-account skills ask you to authorise them once, in the service's own sign-in page. your agent never sees your password; it gets a token scoped to what it needs.

your own key. a small number of skills use a service that charges per request and want your own api key for it, so that usage is billed to you directly rather than through your plan. the catalog marks these before you enable them.

a restart. most skills restart your agent's software when they install. it is quick, but a message sent in that window may take a moment longer to answer.

what is not available?

Slack, Trello, Apple Notes and Apple Reminders are in the catalog marked coming soon. they are not switches you can flip today, and we would rather you read that here than discover it after clicking.

and a skill being on does not mean your agent uses it for everything. it decides per request whether a skill is the right tool, the way you would. if it is reaching for the wrong one, tell it.

what next

• getting started: the first message, and what to connect on day one
• your agent's computer: where skills get installed, and why that matters
• channels: asking for a skill works the same from any channel
• bring your own key: the plans where your own key pays for the model
• connectors: the services your agent can connect, and what each may read or write