Setting up and using skills

Skills are modular, reusable capabilities that provide AI agents with specialized instructions to perform specific tasks. To start using skills, download the skills folder and copy its contents to a location based on the requirements of your AI agent.

You can use skills with any AI agent that supports skills.

After you download the skills folder, the skills are bundled in site-packages/skills/.

Setting up skills

Ensure you have Git CLI installed.
Download the skills folder from the Data Intelligence MCP Server GitHub repository:
1. Clone the repository:
```
git clone git@github.com:IBM/data-intelligence-mcp-server.git
```
2. Verify that the skills folder is available by changing directories:
```
cd data-intelligence-mcp-server/skills
```
Copy the skills folder to a location based on your AI agent requirements. For example:
- For IBM Bob, copy the whole skills folder to the .bob directory.
  You can find the directory in your workspace in IBM BOB IDE.
  
  Expected directory structure:
```
.bob/
|---- skills/
|     |---- skill 1
|     |     |---- SKILL.md
|     |---- skill 2
|     |     |---- SKILL.md
|     |---- skill 3
|     |     |---- SKILL.md
...
```
- For Claude Desktop:
  1. In the Customize sidebar tab, click Skills.
  2. Click + > Create Skill > Upload a skill.
  3. Copy skills from the data-intelligence-mcp-server/skills folder to SKILL.md.

After copying the skills, you can use them in the chat.

Using skills

Most AI agents automatically invoke skills if they detect that the you're asking questions related to a particular skill.

IBM Bob
You can use skills only in the Advanced mode.

To invoke a skill, use the use_skill command with the skill name in the chat.
Example: use_skill onboard-and-enrich.
Claude Desktop
To invoke a skill, use the / command with the skill name in the chat.
Example: /onboard-and-enrich.
watsonx Orchestrate
Watsonx.data intelligence skills are not supported.

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Available MCP skills