Agent Skills

LocalVectorDB ships with pre-built Agent Skills – portable instruction packages that teach AI coding agents how to use LocalVectorDB features effectively. Skills are supported by Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, Gemini CLI, and many other agent products.

What Are Skills?

Agent Skills are folders containing a SKILL.md file with structured instructions that an agent loads on demand when a relevant task is detected. They follow the open Agent Skills specification and work across any compatible agent product.

Each skill has:

• Metadata (name, description) – loaded at startup for task matching

• Instructions – loaded when the skill is activated

• Optional resources – scripts, references, assets loaded as needed

Available Skills

LocalVectorDB includes three skills in the skills/ directory:

semantic-search

When it activates: The user wants to create a vector database, add documents, or run semantic, keyword, or hybrid searches.

What it covers:

• Creating databases with typed metadata schemas

• Document ingestion (upsert, insert, batch, deduplication)

• Vector, keyword, and hybrid search via query()

• Metadata filtering with filter()

• CRUD operations (get, update, delete, count)

• Embedding provider and chunking strategy configuration

• The factory pattern for local/remote databases

fact-checking

When it activates: The user wants to verify LLM-generated text against a knowledge base, detect contradictions, or build grounded Q&A systems.

What it covers:

• Setting up a FactChecker with a database and LLM client

• Checking text for accuracy and grounding

• Working with FactCheckResult, ClaimResult, and Polarity

• Multi-database fact-checking

• Scoped verification against specific source documents

• Patterns for validating LLM output before presenting to users

document-comparison

When it activates: The user wants to measure document similarity, find nearest neighbours, detect partial overlap, cluster documents, or create embedding visualisations.

What it covers:

• Pairwise document comparison (compare_documents)

• Nearest-neighbour search (nearest_neighbors)

• Similarity matrices (pairwise_similarity_matrix)

• Chunk-level detailed comparison (compare_documents_detailed)

• Embedding maps, heatmaps, cluster plots, and similarity graphs

• Interactive plotly visualisations

Using Skills

With Claude Code

If the skills are in a repository that Claude Code has access to, they are discovered automatically. Claude will activate the relevant skill when your task matches its description.

You can also install them explicitly:

# From the anthropic skills marketplace (if published)
/install skills/semantic-search

With Other Agents

Most skills-compatible agents discover SKILL.md files in the repository automatically. Check your agent’s documentation for specifics:

• Cursor

• VS Code Copilot

• Gemini CLI

• Roo Code

See the full list of supported agents at agentskills.io.

Creating Custom Skills

You can create your own skills for project-specific LocalVectorDB workflows. A skill is a directory with a SKILL.md file:

my-custom-skill/
+-- SKILL.md
+-- scripts/          # optional
+-- references/       # optional

The SKILL.md file requires YAML frontmatter with name and description:

---
name: my-custom-skill
description: Describe what this skill does and when to use it. Include keywords
  that help agents identify relevant tasks.
---

# My Custom Skill

Instructions go here. Write clear, step-by-step guidance with code examples.

Naming rules:

• Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only

• 1-64 characters

• Must not start or end with a hyphen

• No consecutive hyphens

• Must match the parent directory name

Best practices:

• Keep SKILL.md under 500 lines; move reference material to separate files

• Write a descriptive description with specific keywords for task matching

• Include complete, runnable code examples

• Cover common edge cases and error handling

• Test the skill by asking an agent to perform tasks that should trigger it

Skill Directory Structure

skills/
+-- semantic-search/
|   +-- SKILL.md
+-- fact-checking/
|   +-- SKILL.md
+-- document-comparison/
|   +-- SKILL.md
+-- my-custom-skill/
    +-- SKILL.md
    +-- scripts/
    |   +-- setup.py
    +-- references/
        +-- api-reference.md

Skills placed in the skills/ directory at the repository root will be discovered by compatible agents automatically.