docs/content/docs/guides/skill-catalog.md

title
Skill Catalog

Skill Catalog

Skills extend what a workspace agent can do — from browser automation and TTS to research tools and custom API integrations. This page covers available skill types, how to install them, and how to manage their versions.

Note: Molecule AI does not ship a hosted skill marketplace. All skills are installed from local packages, GitHub URLs, or community bundles. See Skill Lifecycle for how to publish and distribute skills within your org.

Available Skill Types

The skills ecosystem covers the same capabilities as Hermes Tool Gateway and more:

Category	Skill	What it does	Provider options
Browser	browser-automation	Chrome DevTools Protocol via MCP — navigate, query DOM, screenshot, fill forms. For external sites and social platforms.	Built-in (CDP); swap via skill version
Browser	browser-testing	Playwright headless Chromium — click, drag, type, screenshot, viewport testing. For testing your own canvas and web apps.	Plugin (molecule-ai-plugin-browser-automation)
TTS	tts	Text-to-speech generation. Streams audio to output.	OpenAI, ElevenLabs, or self-hosted
Image gen	image-generation	Generates images from text prompts.	OpenAI DALL·E, Stability AI, or self-hosted
Web search	web-search	Structured web search with result parsing.	Brave, SerpAPI, or custom
Research	arxiv-research	Searches and summarizes arXiv papers.	Community bundle
Code	code-analysis	Static analysis, diff review, complexity scoring.	Built-in
SEO	seo-audit	Lighthouse audit + GSC keyword extraction.	Built-in
Social	social-post	Formats and posts to social channels.	Built-in

All skills are open source. Source is visible — inspect the SKILL.md and tools/ before installing.

Installing a Skill

From the built-in catalog

# Install browser automation
molecule skills install browser-automation

# Install TTS with a specific provider
molecule skills install tts --provider openai

# Install a specific version
molecule skills install browser-automation --version 1.2.0

From GitHub

molecule skills install \
  https://github.com/acme/molecule-skills/tree/main/browser-automation

From a community bundle

Community skills are hosted on GitHub and referenced by slug:

molecule skills install arxiv-research --from community

Community skills are reviewed by the Molecule AI team before being listed. Submit a skill for review by opening a PR against molecule-ai/skills.

Installing via config.yaml

Skills can also be declared in the workspace config file:

skills:
  - name: browser-automation
    source: builtin
  - name: browser-testing
    source: plugin
  - name: tts
    source: builtin
    config:
      provider: openai
  - name: arxiv-research
    source: community

On workspace boot, the runtime validates each skill and loads the SKILL.md + tools into the agent's context.

browser-testing (Playwright)

browser-testing is auto-discovered when molecule-ai-plugin-browser-automation is installed — no additional install flags required. Declare it in config.yaml alongside browser-automation to include it explicitly:

skills:
  - name: browser-automation
    source: builtin
  - name: browser-testing
    source: plugin

Note: browser-testing requires Playwright system dependencies (libglib2.0-0, libnss3, etc.) to be pre-installed in the container image. See the skill's SKILL.md for the full apt-get command.

Version Management

Skills are versioned with semantic versioning. Pin to a known-good release to prevent unexpected behavior changes:

# Pin to a specific version
molecule skills install tts --version 1.1.0

# Upgrade to latest
molecule skills upgrade tts

# View installed version
molecule skills list

Upgrading is safe — the skill loader validates the new package on installation. If the new version has breaking changes, the workspace logs a warning and keeps the previous version active until you restart.

Custom Skills

Write a skill for your team's specific workflow:

# Scaffold a new skill
molecule skills init my-custom-skill

This creates:

skills/my-custom-skill/
+-- SKILL.md              # instructions + frontmatter
+-- tools/
|   +-- my_tool.py        # MCP tool using @tool decorator
+-- examples/             # few-shot examples
+-- templates/            # reference files

See Skills Reference for the full SKILL.md format and frontmatter schema.

Skill Lifecycle

Author writes SKILL.md + tools/
      |
      v
Install into workspace (local or GitHub)
      |
      v
Workspace loads skill on next boot / hot-reload
      |
      v
Agent sees skill in tool context
      |
      v
(Optional) Publish to org bundle or community

Publishing to your org: Bundle skills with workspace templates so every new workspace in a role gets the same capability set:

molecule skills bundle my-custom-skill --output ./org-templates/my-role/

Publishing to the community: Open a PR against molecule-ai/skills with a complete skill package. Community skills are reviewed for security and correctness before listing.

Removing a Skill

molecule skills uninstall browser-automation

Or remove from config.yaml and trigger a hot-reload by touching the file:

touch /configs/config.yaml

The workspace detects the change, rescans skills, and updates the Agent Card within ~3 seconds.

Troubleshooting

Skill not found: Check the skill name matches the catalog exactly. Skill names are lowercase with hyphens (browser-automation, not browser_automation or BrowserAutomation).

Skill loads but tools are missing: Verify the tools/ folder contains valid Python files with @tool-decorated functions. See Skills Reference — Tool Interface.

Provider auth error: Ensure the required environment variable (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY) is set in the workspace config or secrets.

Related Docs

• Skills Reference — Full SKILL.md format, frontmatter schema, and tool interface
• Config Format — How skills are declared in config.yaml
• Plugin System — Installing full plugin packages (skills + MCP servers + shared rules)
• Remote Agent Tutorial — Installing skills on remote (external) agents