Skills & Shortcuts

Tools & MCP covers "how the AI uses tools." This page covers two lighter-weight ways to extend the AI:

• Agent Skills — bundle "instructions + resources" into a folder the AI can read and follow step by step
• Shortcut Tools — expose your iOS Shortcuts as callable tools

Both work without writing any code, lower-barrier than MCP.

What Each Solves

Agent Skills Solve the "Prompt Engineering" Problem

If you keep asking the AI to do similar things — write emails to company spec, analyze data and produce charts, refactor Swift to your style — pasting the rules every time gets old.

A Skill pack is a folder containing:

• SKILL.md — the core spec (name, description, when to use, step-by-step)
• Any number of resource files (templates, references, examples, and optional scripts/)

In chat, the AI sees "you have these Skills available" and proactively reads SKILL.md when it needs to follow that recipe.

Shortcut Tools Solve the "iOS Integration" Problem

iOS Shortcuts already do a lot — check battery, send a text, control home, read calendar, run Python (via a-Shell, etc.).

Shortcut Tools wrap them as callable tools for the AI. "Check today's calendar" makes the AI call the relevant Shortcut; the result flows back as part of its response.

Read This First

Agent Skills

Where

Settings → Agent Skills

Top of the page is the master switch: "Expose Agent Skills to Model (use_skill)".

use_skill and Script Execution

Regular chat still uses use_skill to read SKILL.md and resources on demand. A Skill's scripts/ can run only in Agent mode with local Linux enabled, subject to user approval and command safety rules. Execution uses the version frozen for that Agent Run and mounts it read-only inside Linux; it does not expose the host filesystem.

With the OpenAI Responses format, ETOS uses the native local Shell and attaches enabled Skills to that Shell environment. Other formats continue through use_skill and its execute_script action. Both paths reuse ETOS's Linux isolation, writable workspace, and approval system.

Four Import Methods

Method	When to use
Paste SKILL.md	You've written a SKILL.md and want to paste it directly
Import from GitHub	A Skill pack lives in a GitHub repo. Paste the URL (/tree/branch + subpaths supported)
Link Import	Any directly-downloadable URL to a SKILL.md or .zip
From local pack	Pick a .zip from the iOS Files app

What SKILL.md Looks Like

SKILL.md is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter. Minimal structure:

---
name: Email Helper (corporate style)
description: Writes Chinese / English business emails per company spec — opening salutations, signature, CC rules
---

# When to Use

When the user says "write an email to X" or "help me reply to this email."

# Steps

1. Ask the user: purpose, recipient language, CC?
2. Generate the body using the template…
3. …

# Template

Dear {Recipient},
...

ETOS only requires name (unique) and description in the frontmatter.

Using It

After import:

1. Per-Skill toggle: open the Skill row → enable "Use in Chat"
2. The AI sees: "You have N Skills available: Email Helper, Code Style, …"
3. When a Skill is relevant, the AI reads it through use_skill; OpenAI Responses in Agent + Linux loads the same frozen pack through native Skills

Skill Files

Each Skill is a directory. Besides SKILL.md you can drop in any files (images, code samples, config templates). The detail page lets you:

• Browse the file list
• Add / edit / delete files

Shortcut Tools

Where

Settings → Shortcut Tool Integration

Master switch: "Expose Shortcut Tools to Model".

How to Connect a Shortcut

ETOS uses a bridge shortcut to invoke any of your Shortcuts. Overall flow:

Step 1: Install the official bridge shortcut

The page has "Download Official Import Shortcut". Tap to install ETOS's prebuilt bridge into the iOS Shortcuts app.

Step 2: Build (or download) your own Shortcuts

Open Apple's Shortcuts app and create or grab a Shortcut (e.g., "Today's Weather", "Read Current Location"). The Shortcut must:

• Accept text input (the AI's arguments)
• Return text output (back to the AI)

Step 3: Tell ETOS about your Shortcuts

The integration page has "Import Manifest from Clipboard". The manifest is a JSON/YAML snippet listing the Shortcuts you want the AI to be able to call, with name, description, and parameters.

Alternatively, "Detect and Run Import Shortcut" asks iOS to run the bridge once and have it report your Shortcut library back to ETOS.

Run Mode

Each Shortcut tool has a Run Mode field that decides invocation:

• Direct — URL Scheme straight to the target Shortcut (fast, but a visible cross-app jump)
• Bridge — call the official bridge Shortcut, which proxies (more stable, slightly slower cross-app)

Default order is "Direct → Bridge"; setting a tool's run mode to Bridge reverses it.

Leave it at default unless you know what you're doing.

Auto-Approve Countdown

Shortcut tools use the same approval policy as Tools & MCP, with extras:

Field	Effect
Enable Auto-Approve Countdown	The approval bubble auto-approves after N seconds if you don't act
Countdown Seconds	Adjustable
Disabled Auto-Approve Tools	Tools you specifically want never auto-approved

Auto-Approve Is Sharp

If your Shortcuts include "send message", "send email", "control home", don't enable auto-approve. The AI will occasionally fire side-effectful actions you didn't explicitly OK.

Advanced

Skills vs Tools — When to Use Which

Dimension	Agent Skills	MCP / App Tools
Nature	Skill pack (docs + resources + optional scripts)	Code / service
Authoring	Markdown	Code or server deployment
Best for	Flows, rules, templates	Live data, external APIs, file ops
Examples	Email templates, code style guides, writing style	Weather, file read, GitHub API

Rule of thumb: if "the AI knows how, just needs your conventions" → Skill. If "the AI literally doesn't know the answer and needs to query something" → Tool/MCP.

Skills on GitHub

The community has many public Skill repos. The GitHub import supports:

• Top-level: auto-detects SKILL.md
• /tree/branch/path/to/skill/: specific branch and subpath
• Whole repo: traverse every subdir with a SKILL.md and batch-import

URL Scheme for Shortcut Tools

To trigger an ETOS Shortcut tool from outside iOS:

etos-llm-studio://shortcut-tool?name=ToolName&input=Text

Full scheme protocol is documented under Extended Features.

allowed-tools in SKILL.md

SKILL.md frontmatter may list allowed-tools. Once that Skill is loaded in the current chat run, ETOS uses the list to filter ordinary tools both when exposing them and immediately before execution; unlisted tools are rejected.

allowed-tools can only subtract from tools already enabled for the session. It cannot add tools, enable a disabled integration, bypass approvals, or act as a Shell command allowlist. Omitting it adds no extra restriction, and the restriction is released when the current run ends.

Next

• Connect external data → Tools & MCP
• Long-term memory → Memory & Worldbook
• Clever combos → Hidden Gems