Skills & Instructions

Skills are collections of AI instructions organized by action type. When you use the /ion command in your IDE, Instructionly automatically applies relevant skills based on your context.

Action Types

Skills are categorized by action type. Each action represents a different phase of the development workflow:

Action	Description
Analyze	Understanding requirements, exploring codebases, and gathering information
Plan	Creating implementation strategies, breaking down tasks, and defining approaches
Design	Architectural decisions, system design, and technical specifications
Code	Writing new code, implementing features, and building functionality
Test	Writing tests, test patterns, and quality assurance guidelines
Review	Code review standards, best practices enforcement, and quality checks
Debug	Troubleshooting strategies, error analysis, and problem-solving
Commit	Version control practices, commit message formats, and branching strategies
Deploy	Deployment procedures, CI/CD patterns, and release management
Write	Documentation, comments, and technical writing guidelines
Behave	AI behavior rules, response patterns, and interaction guidelines

Creating a Skill

Navigate to Skills in your workspace
Click Create Skill
Fill in the skill details:
- Name — A descriptive name for the skill
- Action Type — Select the action category
- Execution Mode — How the skill should be applied
- Description — Explain what this skill does
Click Create

Instruction Hierarchy

Instructions in Instructionly follow a structured hierarchy:

structure

Workspace
└── Skill (e.g., "React Best Practices")
    └── Category (e.g., "Component Structure")
        └── Instruction (e.g., "Use functional components")
            └── Conditional Instruction (e.g., "When using forms, prefer controlled components")

Skills — Top-level containers that group related instructions
Categories — Optional groupings within a skill for organization
Instructions — Individual guidelines the AI will follow
Conditional Instructions — Sub-instructions that apply in specific contexts

Managing Instructions

Each skill contains instructions that guide the AI:

Open a skill
Click Add Instruction
Write clear, actionable instruction text
Optionally add categories to organize instructions
Add conditional sub-instructions for context-specific guidance
Save the instruction

Instruction Best Practices

Be specific and actionable
Use clear language the AI can follow
Include code examples when helpful
Organize related instructions in categories
Test your instructions with real prompts

Good instruction example

"When creating React components, use functional components with hooks instead of class components. Destructure props in the function signature."

Enabling/Disabling Skills

You can toggle skills on and off:

Go to the Skills page
Find the skill you want to toggle
Click the toggle switch
Disabled skills won't be applied to AI prompts

Filtering Skills

Use filters to find specific skills:

Search — Find skills by name
Action Type — Filter by create, update, read, etc.
Status — Show only enabled or disabled skills

Skill Hierarchy Limits

To ensure optimal performance, skills have the following limits:

Limitation	Limit
Categories per skill	10
Instructions per category	10
Conditionals per instruction	8

Pricing

Instructions are charged based on the number of instructions delivered to the AI. When you request skills via the directives tool, credits are consumed based on the instructions returned.

Item	Cost
Per instruction	0.05 credits
Minimum charge per request	0.5 credits

Examples:

1-10 instructions → 0.5 credits (minimum)
20 instructions → 1.0 credits
50 instructions → 2.5 credits

See Billing & Credits for more details on credit management and purchasing.