You will learn
- What a skill is and how it's different from other Cici features
- Where to find the skills library and how it's organized
- How to view, run, and clone an existing skill
- How to create your own custom skill
What is a skill
A skill is a saved, reusable set of instructions that Cici, Workshop's AI assistant, can run on demand. Instead of writing out the same prompt every time you want Cici to check a template for accessibility issues or score an email against your brand guidelines, you save that instruction once as a skill and run it whenever you need it.
Skills are different from agents. An agent runs on a schedule or trigger, working in the background. A skill only runs when a user actively chooses to run it. Think of a skill as a saved prompt template that anyone in your account can pull up and use, rather than an automated process running on its own.
Note: Skills are the first building block of a larger set of AI capabilities Workshop is rolling out. Related tools like AI Studio, MCP connectors, and a governance layer for managing access are being built separately and will layer on top of skills over time.
Where to find skills
Skills live under the AI tab in the top navigation. Click AI, then Skills, to open the skills library.
A few things to know about access:
- The AI tab, and skills, are only visible if AI is enabled on your account.
- Right now, every skill created in your account is visible to every user in that account. There is no way yet to restrict who can see a skill you've created — that kind of access control (governance) is planned for a later release.
Browsing the skills library
The skills library has two tabs:
- All skills — every skill available in your account, including the ones Workshop has pre-built and any skills created by you or your teammates.
- My skills — just the skills you've personally created or cloned.
Workshop's pre-built skills are grouped into categories to help you find the right one for the task at hand, such as Content creation, Governance, Planning, Pre-send, and Reporting. You can filter by category or use the search bar at the top of the page to find a skill by name.
Tip: If you're new to Cici and not sure what it can do, browsing the skills library is one of the fastest ways to get a feel for its range — skim the categories and open a few skills to see the kinds of tasks they cover.
Viewing a skill's details
Click into any skill card to see its full details before you run it:
- Description — a short summary of what the skill does.
- Instructions — the full prompt Cici will follow, including any context it gathers and the steps it takes.
From this panel you can also click Try it out to run the skill immediately, without leaving the library.
Creating your own skill
To build a new skill from scratch:
- Go to AI > Skills.
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Click Create skill in the top right.
- Give it a Name and, optionally, a Description.
- Write the Instructions — this is the actual prompt Cici will follow every time the skill runs.
- Click Create skill to save it.
If you're not sure where to start, click Get inspiration in the top right of the window. It opens Workshop's prompt library in a new tab, with example prompts you can adapt for your own skill.
Once you create a skill, it's yours: it appears under My skills, and only you can edit or delete it. Anyone else in the account can see it and use it, but they can't change it — they can only clone it (see below).
Cloning a skill
Cloning lets you take any skill — one Workshop built, or one a teammate created — and turn it into your own editable copy. This is useful when a pre-built skill is close to what you need but not quite right.
To clone a skill:
- Open the skill from the All skills library.
- Click the three-dot menu and select Clone (or click Clone from the skill detail panel).
- Give your copy a name — Workshop will automatically copy over the original skill name with the addition of "Clone" at the end. You can edit this to match whatever naming convention you prefer.
- Edit the description or instructions as needed, then save.
Once cloned, the copy is fully yours. It shows up under My skills, and you can edit, rename, or delete it at any time — the original skill is untouched, and its original owner keeps their own copy separately.
Running a skill in a conversation
There are two ways to run a skill. The first is directly inside a Cici chat window, wherever that window happens to be open — in the email builder, a page editor, or anywhere else Cici appears.
- Open the Cici chat panel.
- Click the Actions button at the bottom of the chat.
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Select Skills, then search or scroll to find the one you want.
- Click the skill to drop it into the chat box, then press enter to run it.
Cici will use the instructions saved in that skill, along with whatever context is available in the conversation (such as the email you're currently editing), to generate its response.
Running a skill against a specific email or page
You don't have to be inside a specific email or page to run a skill against it. From any Cici chat window, you can reference a campaign, email, or other item directly using @, then run a skill against it — without opening that item first.
For example, from the Campaigns page, you can open Cici, type @, and select a campaign like Monthly Sales Metrics, then attach a skill such as Campaign comparison to compare it against another campaign.
Tip: This is especially useful for skills that compare two or more things, like comparing send performance across campaigns, since you can point Cici at exactly the items you want without navigating into each one.