Skills

Skills are domain-specific instruction packs that extend jcode’s capabilities. Each skill provides specialized knowledge for a particular task domain.

How Skills Work

Skills use a two-layer loading system:

1. Layer 1 (always loaded) — The skill’s name, slash command, and short description are injected into the agent’s context at startup. This costs very few tokens.
2. Layer 2 (on demand) — When the agent needs detailed instructions, it loads the full skill content via the load_skill tool.

Built-in Skills

jcode includes three built-in skills:

PR Review (/review-pr)

Reviews a GitHub pull request for code quality, bugs, style, performance, and security. Provides a structured report with:

• Summary and strengths
• Issues categorized by severity
• Suggestions for improvement
• Verdict: APPROVE / REQUEST CHANGES / COMMENT

PR Comments (/pr-comments)

Fetches and displays all comments from a GitHub pull request, including both PR-level comments and inline code review comments with diff context.

Security Review (/security-review)

Performs a security-focused code review of pending changes on the current branch. Identifies high-confidence vulnerabilities with real exploitation potential, including:

• SQL/command injection
• Authentication bypass
• Hardcoded credentials
• Remote code execution
• Data exposure

The PR-related skills require the gh CLI tool to be installed and authenticated. Run gh auth login if you haven’t already.

Using Skills

Type the skill’s slash command in the TUI:

/review-pr

Or simply ask the agent to perform the task:

Review the current pull request

The agent will automatically load the relevant skill if available.

Custom Skills

Create your own skills to teach jcode specialized behaviors.

Skill File Format

Each skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file:

---
name: my-skill
description: What this skill does
slash: /my-command
---

# My Skill Title

Detailed instructions for the agent...

The frontmatter supports:

• name — Skill identifier (defaults to directory name)
• description — Short description shown in the skill list
• slash — Slash command trigger (e.g., /my-command)

Where to Put Skills

Skills are loaded from multiple locations. Later sources override earlier ones:

Priority	Location	Scope
1 (lowest)	Built-in (embedded in binary)	Always available
2	~/.agents/skills/{name}/SKILL.md	Agent-level, shared across projects
3	~/.jcode/skills/{name}/SKILL.md	User-level, your personal skills
4 (highest)	.jcode/skills/{name}/SKILL.md	Project-level, committed to the repo

Example: Creating a Custom Skill

1. Create the directory:

   mkdir -p ~/.jcode/skills/deploy-check
   

2. Create SKILL.md:

   ---
   name: deploy-check
   description: Pre-deployment checklist for production releases
   slash: /deploy-check
   ---
   
   # Deploy Check
   
   Before deploying to production, verify:
   
   1. Run all tests: `make test`
   2. Check for TODO/FIXME comments in modified files
   3. Verify no debug logging left in code
   4. Check that version numbers are bumped
   5. Review the git diff for any unexpected changes
   

3. The skill is now available as /deploy-check in any jcode session.