Understand Sydekick skills
How do I find a skill and understand what it lets Sydekick do?
A skill is one named job your agent already knows how to do, such as drafting replies to unanswered reviews, writing Google Business Profile post ideas, or drafting posts for a brand. Sydekick → Skills is the list. It is one list for your whole agency, but when you choose a client in the top bar, each card gains a switch that sets whether that client can use the skill. Open a skill to see exactly what it does and which phrases start it.
Key facts
| Where it lives | Sydekick → Skills, its own item in the left navigation |
| What is listed | Skills Synup maintains for customers, plus the ones your team taught. Always-on background skills and system skills are not shown |
| Header | Skills, with a count such as 5 skills · 2 from your team |
| Find one | The magnifier searches names, descriptions and trigger phrases. Filter has Category and Who owns it |
| Per client | Choose a client in the top bar and each card shows Available to this client as a switch |
| Open one | Select a card for its page: What it does, When it runs, Your phrases (built-ins), How it is doing, Activity, Actual instruction |
| Built-in skills | Maintained by Synup and locked. Change it offers your own copy |
Steps
Open Sydekick in the left navigation, then Skills.
Search, or select Filter to narrow the cards. Category groups skills by the work they do (Reviews, Posts and social, Listings, Reports, Research, Other). Who owns it splits Yours from From Synup. Tick what you want and select Apply. The button reads Filter: All when nothing is set.
Read a card. Each shows the skill's name, what it does, its scope, what happens to the output (for example Queues drafts for review in Approvals) and who created it: Synup, a teammate or you.
To see how a skill applies to one client, choose that client in the top bar first. Each card gets a switch, Available to this client. Turn it on or off.
Select a card to open the skill, or use the menu on the card for Open, Try it and Change it.
Categories are worked out from a skill's name and keywords, so a skill you taught can land in Other or a group you did not expect. Search finds it either way.
Turn a skill on or off for one client
With a client chosen, the switches control which skills the agent may use for that client. The rules are simple:
- A client with no switches ever turned off has every skill on.
- Turning one off gives that client its own list, and the skills still on are the only ones the agent uses for them. A skill you teach later is not added to that list, so switch it on for the clients that should have it.
- Turning every skill back on returns the client to the default.
- The switch applies to the client, not to a person or a channel.
If a skill the agent wants is off for the client in scope, the agent may say so and offer to look wider. When no client is chosen there are no switches, because the list is the agency's.
What a skill's own page tells you
Choose Open on any card.
The line under the title is the provenance: the skill's short name, its version, and who maintains it, such as maintained by Synup, taught by you, taught by a teammate or shared in your workspace. What it does is the plain-English summary. Read it before you rely on a skill: several queue drafts for approval rather than publishing, and the description is where that is stated. A card for a Synup skill may show a friendlier title than the skill's own name on its page.
When it runs lists the trigger phrases. Say any of them in a Sydekick conversation and that skill runs, with no need to open this page. You can also pick the skill deliberately from the composer. A skill has no schedule of its own: "To run this on a schedule, put it in a playbook."
How it is doing is narrower than it looks. Its own footnote reads Scheduled runs only. Runs you start from chat are not counted yet. A skill you use constantly in chat can show no runs. Activity lists recent runs when there are some. Actual instruction is the skill's text, with Copy source and Export .md. When the instructions name the connections a skill relies on, a What it needs panel lists them.
Add your own wording to a built-in
On a Synup skill, the When it runs panel has Your phrases: extra wording that should start the skill, such as the phrase your team and clients already use. Type a phrase, select Add phrase, and the page confirms Phrases saved — the assistant is using them now. The phrases work in your chat and in the client portal.
There is no permission setting for people
A skill has no access control for people: there is no per-user or per-channel permission, and no way to give one person a trigger phrase and withhold it from another. The controls are the two filters, the per-client switches, and the approval instruction the skill itself carries ("Ask my approval before anything goes live", chosen when a skill is taught). That instruction is part of the skill's text, so it applies to the work, not to the person. See teaching a new skill.
You also will not see every skill your agent has. Skills that carry your agency's standing rules and a few system skills are not editable and are kept off this list because they are settings, not jobs.
Changing one you did not write
Change it edits the trigger phrases and instructions of a skill your team taught, and saving restarts the agent so it picks up the new version.
Synup's own skills are locked. Change it on one opens Make your own copy: "Built-ins are maintained by Synup and locked, so changing one means keeping your own copy. Your copy takes a new name."
The dialog suggests a name, such as the original with -yours added; names use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. Copy the trigger phrases too is off by default. Turn it on and both skills answer to the same phrases, which makes it unpredictable which one runs.
Suggestions and the skills directory
Under the cards, Suggested for you can list things your team or clients ask for again and again that your assistant does not handle yet, when there are any. From the skills directory shows skills published elsewhere for other AI agents, with a search box. These are starting points only: "The instructions carry over as a starting point, but each one needs adapting before your assistant can run it." Choosing one opens Teach a new skill with a brief filled in. The directory is a third-party listing, so what it shows changes and can be empty.
What you'll see when it's done
- The skill you wanted, found by search, filter or category
- For a client in the top bar: each skill switched on or off for that client
- A skill's page showing what it does, the phrases that start it and its instruction text
Watch out for
- A new skill is off for a client that already has its own list. Select the client in the top bar and switch the new skill on.
- The skills are chosen from your words. Sydekick picks skills from what you type, not from the page you are on, so a request that does not sound like any trigger phrase may not start the skill you expected. Pick it from the composer to be sure.
Questions people ask
Why does the page not show everything my agent can do?
It lists the jobs meant for you to start or teach. Standing-rule skills and some system skills are hidden.
Can I stop one client from using a skill?
Yes. Choose the client in the top bar and turn the skill off on its card. Other clients are not affected.
Can I give one teammate a skill but not another?
No. Skills are agency-wide and have no per-person permission. Page access for the Skills page is set per team member, but that controls who can see and change skills, not who can run a particular one.
Why do the numbers in How it is doing stay at zero?
Because it counts scheduled runs only. Runs you start by typing in chat are not counted yet.