Create Your Own Skill
Skills are the easiest way to teach Northfox a repeatable workflow.
Choose a skill when you want to standardize:
- how an answer is structured
- which checklist Northfox should follow
- how a recurring research task should be broken down
- how notes should be written or updated
If you need a new integration, a custom data source, or a custom card, build a plugin instead.
The simplest way to make a skill
Ask Northfox for it directly.
Examples:
- "Create a skill that builds an earnings preview for any ticker."
- "Create a skill that turns a chat into a 6-bullet investment memo."
- "Create a skill for portfolio reviews focused on concentration and overlap."
After the skill is created, you can review it from the Skills sidebar.
What a good skill looks like
A strong skill is:
- narrow enough to do one job well
- reusable across many chats
- clear about its output format
- written in the language a user would naturally ask for
Good examples:
- earnings preview
- competition comparison
- valuation snapshot
- note cleanup and formatting
Less useful examples:
- a skill that tries to do every kind of analysis
- a skill that depends on one one-off conversation
Manual skill authoring
Most skills are simple markdown instruction files named SKILL.md.
They usually include:
- a name
- a short description
- intent examples
- clear instructions for the workflow
Use plain, direct language. The goal is to describe how Northfox should approach the task, not how the app works internally.
Review and maintenance
Open the Skills sidebar to:
- inspect installed skills
- reread their instructions
- remove user-created skills you no longer need
When a skill stops being useful, rewrite it or replace it with a narrower one.