Development12 min readAdvanced

Skills & Plugins

Extend with community skills or build your own. It can even write its own

What You'll Learn

  • ✓How OpenClaw loads and manages skills from multiple locations
  • ✓Skill precedence rules and workspace vs shared skills
  • ✓Installing and managing skills via ClawHub
  • ✓SKILL.md format and frontmatter metadata
  • ✓Gating skills based on environment and configuration
  • ✓Security best practices for third-party skills

Table of Contents

Skills Overview

OpenClaw uses AgentSkills-compatible skill folders to teach the agent how to use tools. Each skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter and instructions.

SKILL.md must include at least name and description in YAML frontmatter

Skills Locations

Skills are loaded from three places, with workspace taking precedence:

Bundled skills

Shipped with the install (npm package or OpenClaw.app)

Managed/local skills

~/.openclaw/skills - local overrides visible to all agents

Workspace skills

\<workspace\>/skills - user-owned with highest precedence

Precedence Rules

Priority order (highest to lowest)

WorkspaceManaged/localBundled

If a skill name conflicts, workspace wins, then managed/local, then bundled

ClawHub - Skills Registry

ClawHub is the public skills registry for OpenClaw. Browse at https://clawhub.com to discover, install, update, and backup skills.

Install a skill

clawhub install [skill-slug]

Update all skills

clawhub update --all
Browse skills at clawhub.com

Skill Format (SKILL.md)

SKILL.md must include YAML frontmatter with at least name and description:

---
name: my-skill
---
# Your skill instructions here
Use baseDir variable to reference the skill folder.
name (required)

Unique identifier for the skill

description (required)

What the skill does

metadata.openclaw.requires

Gating conditions: bins, env, config, os

user-invocable

Expose as slash command (default: true)

Security Notes

Treat skills as trusted code

Read third-party skills before enabling. Prefer sandboxed runs for untrusted inputs.

  • !Skills can execute arbitrary code on your system
  • !Keep secrets out of prompts and logs
  • !Review skill code before installation
  • !Use skill gating to control access

Continue Learning

Skills are just one way to extend OpenClaw. Explore more tutorials and documentation:

View All TutorialsVisit Official Docs