Skip to main content
A skill only becomes usable by your Agents once you Publish it. This page covers publishing, controlling visibility and sharing, moving skills between folders, importing and exporting, and safely archiving or deleting a skill.

​
Publish a skill

Publishing turns a Draft into a usable skill. On skill tiles and badges the published state is shown as Agent ready; the editor and the Status filter call the same state Published.
1

Open the skill

Open the skill from the Workspace tab of Skills, or open the skill editor you are working in.
2

Resolve any package errors

Publishing is blocked until package validation passes. A skill also can’t be saved without a Name and a Folder, so set those in the Settings panel first.
3

Click Publish

Use Publish in the editor header. The status moves to Published and the tile shows Agent ready.
Ordinary Agent runs use published skills. A new Draft is editable and shareable but is not available to those runs. On supporting deployments, an explicitly authorized Agent preview can select an exact draft Skill version with edit access and matching Agent policy; it does not publish that Skill.
After publishing, agents can attach the skill from their setup — see Giving agents tools, skills & connections.

​
Save changes without replacing the published package

On staged-save deployments, editing and saving a published skill creates working changes while retaining its published package. Publish promotes the reviewed current version; saving alone does not. A published skill can therefore have an unpublished draft without losing its existing availability. Chat and saved Agents use the latest published package when they load a Skill. You select the Skill, without choosing a version. Publishing an update makes it available to subsequent Skill loads, including in an existing Agent or resumed run. Work already executing continues with the package it loaded; history records the version actually used. Saving a draft does not replace the published package. Publishing an Agent never automatically publishes its Skill dependencies; publish required Skills separately when intended.

​
Set visibility and share

Every workspace skill has a Visibility that decides who can see it, plus optional per-person and per-team sharing. Open Share from a skill’s detail header.
Visible to your whole workspace. This is the Company default — anyone in the workspace can find and use the skill.
In the Share dialog you can add individual members or teams and grant each one a role: Click Save to apply sharing.
Sharing requires share permission on the skill. A skill’s Folder (Company, Personal, or a specific Team) also scopes who it belongs to — use Move to relocate a skill to a different folder or team.

​
Duplicate a view-only skill

If you have only view access — or the skill is Built-in or Archived — editing and publishing are disabled. To make changes, create an editable copy first.
1

Open the skill

Open any view-only or read-only skill.
2

Duplicate

Choose Duplicate from the header. Erstan creates an editable Draft copy in your library (a toast confirms Draft copy created).
3

Edit and publish

Edit the copy in the skill editor, then Publish when it’s ready.
This is also how you adapt a Built-in skill: duplicate it into your workspace, change the instructions, and publish your own version.

​
Import and export

Skills are portable as .zip packages, which makes it easy to move a skill between workspaces or share it outside Erstan.
  • Export — From a skill’s header, choose Export to download the skill as a .zip package (its SKILL.md, supporting files, and any actions).
  • Import — Use Import on the Skills page to bring a .zip package into your workspace as a new skill.
To distribute a skill more broadly to other Erstan customers, publish it through the Solution Library instead — see Publishing with Erstan Builders.

​
Archive or delete

When a skill is no longer needed, Archive it (active skills) or Delete it (already-archived skills). Before either runs, Erstan performs a lifecycle impact check.
1

Open the skill or select rows

Open the skill, or multi-select rows in the list to use the bulk action bar (it shows N selected with Archive (N) and Delete archived (N)).
2

Choose Archive or Delete

Archive an active skill, or Delete a skill that is already archived.
3

Review the impact check

Erstan shows where the skill is used across Agents, chat threads, and channel bindings. You can clean up draft usage here before continuing.
4

Confirm

Confirm Archive or Delete.
Archiving a skill makes it read-only — you can inspect it, but editing and publishing are disabled. Agents that still reference an archived or deleted skill will no longer load it, which can change their behavior. Review the impact check and clean up draft usage first.
Only the skill owner or a workspace admin can archive or delete a skill. In a bulk selection, items you don’t have permission to change are called out and skipped.

​
Who can do what

Create, edit, publish, and share skills they own or have Editor access to. They can duplicate any skill they can view.
Everything members can do, plus archive or delete any skill, and manage Built-in skills (prioritize, disable, or replace).

​
Next steps

Creating and editing skills

Author a skill by hand or with Skill Chat in the package editor.

Skills overview

How skills work and how agents use published ones.

Built-in skills

Review, prioritize, disable, or replace the skills Erstan ships.

Publishing with Erstan Builders

Share your work as a clonable Solution Library listing.