Skills

OrchStep provides skill documents that teach LLM agents domain-specific knowledge about workflow authoring, MCP integration, and module creation. Skills are structured instruction sets that agents load to become proficient with OrchStep.

Available Skills

orchstep-workflow-authoring

Teaches agents how to write OrchStep YAML workflows. Covers the complete workflow syntax including:

• Workflow structure (name, desc, vars, tasks, steps)
• All available functions (shell, http, assert, transform, render, wait)
• Variable scoping and precedence (4 levels)
• Control flow (if/elif/else, switch/case, loops)
• Error handling (retry, catch, finally, on_error)
• Output extraction with Go templates and regex
• Task calling with parameter passing

Use when: Building deployment pipelines, automation runbooks, or multi-step operational workflows.

orchstep-mcp-integration

Teaches agents how to use the OrchStep MCP server. Covers:

• Starting the MCP server (orchstep mcp serve)
• Available tools (run, list_tasks, lint, module_search, module_install, workflow_generate, version)
• Tool parameters, response formats, and error codes
• Usage patterns (discover-and-run, validate-before-running, module-based, generate-and-execute)
• Client configuration for Claude Desktop and generic MCP clients

Use when: Building AI-powered automation that orchestrates workflows, manages modules, or generates workflow definitions.

orchstep-module-creation

Teaches agents how to create reusable OrchStep modules. Covers:

• Module structure (orchstep-module.yml + orchstep.yml)
• Module metadata (name, version, description, author, license)
• Config schema (required/optional parameters with types, defaults, validation)
• Exported tasks and dependencies
• Versioning with semver
• Publishing and distribution via Git
• Module patterns (infrastructure, notification, testing)

Use when: Packaging deployment patterns, operational runbooks, or infrastructure automation for distribution.

How Skills Work

Skills are loaded by LLM agents as context when they need to perform OrchStep-related tasks. The skill document provides:

1. Quick reference — concise syntax reminders for common operations
2. Complete API — all parameters, return values, and options
3. Patterns — proven workflows for common scenarios (deploy pipelines, CI/CD, etc.)
4. Anti-patterns — common mistakes to avoid

Skill Integration

Skills are distributed in the orchstep-public repository under the skills/ directory. Any LLM agent framework that supports skill/instruction loading can use them.

Each skill follows a standard format:

---
name: skill-name
description: When to use this skill
---

# Skill Title

Structured instructions and reference material...