Skills & Commands

The skills server lets you load slash commands and skills from local files on disk.

Directory structure

• Directory.aether/ (or ~/.aether/ for global)

  • Directorycommands/

    • commit.md
    • review.md
    • plan.md
  • Directoryskills/

    • Directoryrust/

      • SKILL.md
      • traits.md
      • error-handling.md
    • Directorytesting/

      • SKILL.md

Tools

Tool	Description
get_skills	Load a skill or one of its auxiliary files
save_note	Append a learning to a topic-based note file
search_notes	Search notes by topic or tags

Writing a command

Commands are markdown files in the commands/ directory. The filename (minus .md) becomes the command name.

commands/commit.md

---
description: Generate a commit message for staged changes
argument-hint: [optional context]
allowed-tools:
  - bash
  - grep
---

Generate a concise commit message for the currently staged git changes.

The user provided: $ARGUMENTS

Rules:
- Use conventional commit format
- Keep the subject line under 72 characters

Frontmatter fields

Field	Description
description	Shown in the command picker UI
argument-hint	Placeholder text for the argument input
allowed-tools	Tools the agent can use while executing the command

Template variables

Variable	Description
$ARGUMENTS	The full argument string passed by the user
$1, $2, …	Positional arguments (space-separated)

Writing a skill

Skills are directories containing a SKILL.md file and optional auxiliary files.

skills/rust/SKILL.md

---
name: rust
description: Rust coding conventions and best practices
tags: [rust, coding, testing]
---

# Rust Conventions

## Error Handling
- Use specific enum types, not `Box<dyn Error>`
- Never add `anyhow` as a dependency

## Testing
- Use `Fake` prefix, never `Mock`
- Prefer in-memory fakes over side-effect mocks

See [error-handling](./error-handling.md) for detailed patterns.

SKILL.md frontmatter

Field	Description
name	Skill identifier
description	What this skill covers (used for discovery)
tags	Search tags for finding relevant skills

Auxiliary files

Additional markdown files in the skill directory can be loaded on demand via get_skills. When a client loads SKILL.md, the response also includes a manifest of available auxiliary files.

Global vs project skills

• Project skills — Place them in .aether/commands/ and .aether/skills/ inside your project
• Global skills — Place them in ~/.aether/commands/ and ~/.aether/skills/ to make them available everywhere

Notes

save_note and search_notes let agents persist concise learnings between sessions.