Pipeline Skills
Inject specialized knowledge and instructions into your AI pipeline stages.
3 min read
What you'll learn
- What pipeline skills are and how they work
- How to create and manage skills
- How skills combine with prompts
- Skill limits by plan
What are pipeline skills?
Pipeline skills are modular instruction sets that you can inject into any stage of the AI pipeline. Unlike prompts — which replace the entire instruction set for a stage — skills augment the active prompt by adding specialized knowledge on top.
Think of skills as plug-in expertise. For example:
- A GDPR Compliance skill adds data protection requirements to the Analysis stage
- A Value-Based Pricing skill injects pricing methodology into the Scoping stage
- A Technical Writing skill adjusts the tone and detail level in the Writing stage
Navigate to the Skills page from the sidebar to manage your skill library.
Pipeline skills require a Solo plan or higher. See Plans for skill limits by plan.
Skill categories
Skills are organized into categories:
- Compliance — regulatory and legal requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, etc.)
- Pricing — pricing methodologies and strategies
- Methodology — project management and delivery frameworks (Agile, Waterfall, etc.)
- Industry — industry-specific knowledge and terminology
- Technical — technical requirements and standards
- Writing — tone, style, and formatting preferences
- General — miscellaneous skills that don't fit other categories
Creating a skill
Click New Skill and fill in:
- Name — a descriptive name (e.g., "HIPAA Compliance Requirements")
- Category — select from the available categories
- Description — explain what this skill does
- Stage instructions — the text injected into each pipeline stage where this skill is active. You can configure different instructions for Analysis, Scoping, Writing, and Scoring independently.
Using skills
When creating a proposal, you can activate skills alongside your selected prompts. Multiple skills can be active simultaneously — their instructions are combined and injected into the relevant pipeline stages.
Combination rules
Skills have built-in rules to prevent conflicts:
- Max combine — some skills limit how many can be active at once
- Conflicts with — certain skills are mutually exclusive (e.g., two conflicting pricing methodologies)
- Requires — some skills depend on others being active
Ergate enforces these rules when you select skills, preventing invalid combinations.
Community skills
Skills can be shared with the community:
- Personal — only you can use the skill
- Community — available for others to fork and use
- Marketplace — available for purchase on the Marketplace
Fork community skills to create your own customized versions.
Skill limits
| Plan | Skill limit | |------|------------| | Free | 0 | | Solo | 3 | | Pro | 10 | | Agency | Unlimited |
Start with one or two skills that address your most common proposal requirements. For example, if you frequently work with healthcare clients, a HIPAA compliance skill will consistently improve your Analysis and Scoping output.