Core Docs - Core Concepts - Add Skills to an Agent

Rock Version: v20.0
Last Modified: 2026-04-30 3:49 PM

Skills define what an agent can do. Without skills, an agent can have a conversation but can't actually reach into Rock to look anything up or take any action. Skills are what make the agent genuinely useful.

Each skill is a bundle of related abilities. The Person Skill, for example, gives the agent everything it needs to look up people, view profiles, check group membership and review communication history. The Finance Skill covers giving and contributions. You don't manage the individual actions inside each skill. You just decide which skills each agent gets.

Built-in skills

Rock comes with a set of built-in skills covering the areas your staff work in most. For most organizations, these are all you'll ever need.

Choosing which skills to assign

The right set depends on who the agent is for. Give a staff agent most skills. Scale back for volunteers — leave out Finance and anything that touches records they shouldn't see. For a public-facing agent, strip it down to the event calendar, campus information and prayer requests.

The more focused an agent's skill set, the more reliably it performs. An agent loaded with every skill is slower and more likely to get confused by an ambiguous request.

Skills respect Rock security

Assigning a skill to an agent doesn't mean everyone who uses the agent can access it. Each skill respects Rock's security model. A person must have permission to use a skill before the agent will run it on their behalf.

This means you can assign a skill to an agent and let security roles control exactly who can use it, without managing permissions on every individual tool inside the skill.

Custom skills

Rock's built-in skills cover most needs. If your organization has workflows that aren't covered, Rock supports custom skills. See community.rockrms.com/developer/ai-agents for details.