Research Skills¶

Skills are versioned instruction packages that help OpenHands perform a repeatable workflow with declared tools, data expectations, and review guidance. Heartwood includes repository-verified Skills and can install project-scoped extensions after explicit inspection and approval.

Inspect Available Skills¶

heartwood skills list

The browser Skills view presents the same catalog. Bundled Skills ship with the Heartwood release; installed extensions live under .heartwood/skills/ for the current project.

Inspect an Extension¶

Before installing a Skill from a mounted folder:

heartwood skills inspect /path/to/skill

Review the source, metadata, declared tools, expected data access, and provenance outside Heartwood as well. Skill validation checks structure and integrity; it does not establish that third-party instructions are trustworthy for controlled data.

Install or Remove an Extension¶

heartwood skills install /path/to/skill --approve
heartwood skills remove skill-name

Installation copies the reviewed Skill into private project state and records the operation. Removing it resets active agent services so later turns cannot continue using the removed instructions.

Data Boundaries¶

Skills do not grant new filesystem, network, credential, or platform permissions. The project boundary, OpenHands tools, process permissions, model-route policy, and deployment controls remain authoritative.

Use synthetic fixtures for public examples, tests, and shared Skill development.