# Skills > Plain-English instructions for tasks you repeat. The built-in skills, translating a transcript, running a skill, the shared library and what a skill may change. - Page: https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/ - Checked with Samurai Scribe 0.65.0 A [skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#skill) is a set of instructions, in plain English, that the [assistant](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#assistant) follows to do a task you repeat: write a follow-up email, keep a log of decisions, brief you before a call. Each skill is a folder in your vault's `Skills/` folder holding a `SKILL.md` file, in the open Agent Skills format that other AI apps read too. Skills are free to write, install and run, anywhere. Having one run by itself, after meetings or on a schedule, is an [automation](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/), and automations need Pro. ## Skill or script? Both can write up a meeting as a step of a [processing profile](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/). - **A skill** says what to do in plain English, and the AI works out how. It can search your other meetings, read notes and files, propose notes and edits, and work in services through [connections](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#connection). Writing one needs no code. - **A [script](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/scripting/)** is a short program in the Rhai language. It decides exactly what is asked of the model and what is written, the same way every time. Choose a skill when describing the task is the easy part. Choose a script when you want precise control over the output. ## The Skills page Open **Skills** in the sidebar. The page has four tabs: - **Skills**: your own skills under **Your skills**, and the shared library under **Shared skills**. - **Automations**: when skills run by themselves. Without Pro, this tab carries the Pro mark; nothing else on the page does. See [Automations](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/). - **Connections** (beta): the services the assistant and skills can work in. - **Log**: every run started from the Skills page, with **Find names…**, **Polish transcript…** or **Translate transcript…**, or by an automation. Click one to open its conversation in the assistant. Each skill is a card with its name and the first sentence of its description. Click a card to open the skill in the editor. Hover over it for its actions: - ▶ **Run now**, or **Run on…** for a skill that works on a meeting, a calendar meeting or a note; - **Run it by itself…**, which makes an automation for it; - **Restore default**, on a built-in skill you have changed; - **Delete**, which moves the skill's folder, files and all, to the trash. Conversations it ran are kept. A card that reads **Needs fixing:** names what is wrong with the skill's file. [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#test-and-fix-a-skill) lists the usual causes. ## The built-in skills Four skills come with Samurai Scribe. The app writes them into your Skills folder the first time you open Skills or use the assistant, as ordinary `SKILL.md` files you can read and change. - **Meeting summary** writes a meeting's Summary: an overview, the discussion, decisions, action items and open questions. A processing profile can run it as a step. - **Name speakers** works out who a meeting's unnamed speakers are, from what they say and the calendar invite, and proposes their names in the transcript. In a transcript with unnamed speakers, ⋮ → **Find names…** runs it. Each name it gives waits for you to confirm it. - **Polish transcript** corrects a transcript's misheard words, names and terms, punctuation and capitals, without changing what was said. In a transcript, ⋮ → **Polish transcript…** runs it. Your Dictionary already applies to it. To teach it other words, add them to the **Glossary** list at the end of its `SKILL.md`, one per line, written `- Term`. - **Translate transcript** puts a meeting's transcript into another language. Every line keeps its time and speaker. See [Translate a transcript](#translate-a-transcript). A built-in skill's card says **Built-in**, and it updates with the app until you change it. Once you do, the card says **Built-in · changed** and the app leaves your version alone. **Restore default** puts the app's version back, and your version goes to the trash. If you delete a built-in skill, it stays deleted. **Find names…**, **Polish transcript…** and **Translate transcript…** still work: they use the app's own copy. ### Translate a transcript 1. Open the meeting's transcript, and choose ⋮ → **Translate transcript…**. 2. Type the language, such as German, and press **Translate**. The field starts on the language you used last time. 3. The assistant opens and translates the transcript a part at a time. The translation arrives as a [change](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#change): review it line by line, then keep or discard it. Nothing changes until the change is kept, unless the assistant's [mode](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#mode) lets changes apply by themselves. The original is kept: undo the change, or use ⋮ → **Restore as transcribed…**, which puts back the transcript as it was first made, replacing every edit since. (A meeting transcribed with a version before 0.65 has no such copy, so use undo.) A part the model couldn't translate is left as it was, and the assistant says which. In a chat, `/translate-transcript German` does the same for the meeting the chat is about, and so does asking "translate this transcript into German". ## Running a skill There are five ways to run one: - **From the Skills page.** Press ▶ on its card. A skill that works on nothing in particular runs at once. Otherwise a menu asks what to run it on, under **Calendar**, **Meetings** and **Notes** headings, as the skill allows: upcoming calendar meetings; recent meetings, marked **Not transcribed** or **Recording now** where that's so; the note open now, or **Choose a note…**; and **On its own** if the skill can run without any. A skill that takes an argument then asks for it, such as **Language**. - **In a chat.** Type / at the start of a message and pick the skill from the list. Anything you type after its name is the skill's argument for that run, for example `/client-recap keep it under 150 words`. - **By asking.** The assistant reads your skills' descriptions and follows a skill when your question fits it. That is why a good description says when to use the skill. - **As a step of a processing profile.** In the Profile Manager's **Summarization** panel, **Add a step** lists your skills under **SKILLS**. The skill then runs on every meeting that profile processes, and its reply is saved in the meeting as a document. This is free. See [Processing profiles](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/). - **By itself**, after each meeting is processed, before calendar meetings or on a schedule. That is an [automation](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/) and needs Pro. A skill does the same things in each of these places. [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#arguments) explains arguments, and how a skill asks for one. AI apps you connect in **Settings → AI Apps**, such as Claude Desktop or Claude Code, can also list your skills and follow one. See [AI apps](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#ai-app). A skill runs on the assistant's model, unless it runs as a profile step: then it uses the model set for summaries. A small model follows a skill best when its steps are short and numbered; [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#writing-instructions-that-work) has more tips. ## What a run gives you A run you start from the Skills page opens in the assistant as a conversation of its own, named after the skill and what it ran on. What it gives back depends on the skill: - **An answer** in that conversation. Keep it with **Save as note**, or copy it. - **Changes**: a new note, an edit, transcript corrections or a renamed person. Each one is a [change](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#change) you keep or discard, as with anything the assistant proposes. See [Changes, modes and undo](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/assistant/changes/). - **An email draft**, which you open in your mail app or in Gmail. The app sends nothing itself. - **Actions in a connected service**, such as an issue in Linear, as each action's permission allows. Run as a step of a processing profile, a skill writes its documents into the meeting as the step's **This meeting** setting allows: straight away by default, because you pressed **Run**. The document's ⋮ menu then has **How this was made**, which opens the conversation the step ran in. ### What waits for your review A skill may change notes wherever **Settings → AI Apps → Folder Access** lets AI edit. Who approves its changes depends on how it runs: - **In a chat, or started by you**, from the **Skills** page or with **Find names…**, **Polish transcript…** or **Translate transcript…**: changes follow the assistant's [mode](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#mode). In the default mode, **Review**, every change waits for you. - **As a step of a processing profile**: the step's two settings, **This meeting** and **Elsewhere**. See [Processing profiles](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/#what-a-step-may-change). - **From an automation**: the same two settings, in the automation's editor. See [Automations](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/#what-it-may-change). Actions in a connected service follow their own permission. - **Always waiting**, however it runs: moves and deletes outside a meeting, a new skill, and any change to your Skills, Scripts or Dictionary folders. A skill goes on running long after anyone read it. Whatever a skill changed in a meeting is listed under **All changes** in the meeting's title bar. See [Changes, modes and undo](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/assistant/changes/#all-changes-to-a-meeting). ## Shared skills: the library **Shared skills**, under your own skills on the Skills tab, lists the skills published in the public library, [github.com/samuraiscribe/skills](https://github.com/samuraiscribe/skills), that you haven't installed. Installed ones are under **Your skills**. Opening the Skills page fetches that list from the internet; the [network disclosure](https://samuraiscribe.com/network) lists the request. Click a shared skill to read it before you install it. The view shows its instructions and what it works on, and under **FROM THE LIBRARY**: - **Tested on the built-in model**, when its author checked it on the app's own model; - each connection it needs, as **Needs Linear — Connect** until you have connected that service; - the actions it uses in those services; - any other files it brings. **Install** writes the skill into your Skills folder exactly as published. Installing never makes a skill run. If its author suggests when to run it, such as after each meeting, the app asks **Run it automatically?**: **Make an automation** opens a new automation for it, already filled in, and **Not now** leaves it. **Updates.** When a newer version is published, the skill's card shows **Update**. Once you change an installed skill, it stops updating from the library and its card shows **Update…** instead. That opens the published version with **Replace mine**, which puts it in place of yours; your version goes to the trash. **Name taken** means you already have a skill of your own with that name. Rename yours to install the shared one beside it. To share a skill of your own, see [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#share-it-in-the-library). ## Skills from elsewhere A skill is just a folder, so you can also copy one into your vault's `Skills/` folder by hand, from a colleague or from another app that uses the Agent Skills format, and it appears on the Skills page. If its card says **Needs fixing:**, open it to see why: the folder's name must match the skill's `name`, and the app reads its settings in a simple form. [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#skills-from-other-apps) has the details. ## Connections in skills A skill can work in services such as Linear, Notion or Jira & Confluence through a [connection](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#connection). A skill that needs one says so, and you connect the service on the **Connections** tab of the Skills page. You choose for each of the service's actions whether it is **Off**, asks you first (**Ask**), is allowed (**Allow**), or is allowed even when nobody is watching (**Allow in automatic runs**). Connections are free; an automation acting through one with nobody watching needs Pro. See [Automations](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/#connections-in-automatic-runs).