Standardize Onboarding with Custom Agent Skills

Overview

This guide is for platform and governance teams that need a standardized way to onboard product teams into AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, and other agents that support the Agent Skills standard.

Instead of asking every team to copy local instruction files by hand, Confident AI can serve the right Custom Agent Skills for each project over git smart-HTTP at /skills.git. Product teams install the skills once with their Project API Key, and the endpoint returns a read-only repository tailored to that project.

In this guide, you will:

• Publish onboarding guidance from Organization Settings, with project-specific routing.
• Define governance guidance once on the governance policy assigned to the project.
• Install project-specific skills into a coding agent with the Skills CLI.
• Verify the generated repository contains the expected SKILL.md files.

By the end, each product team can install the same URL pattern while receiving instructions that match their project and policy requirements.

flowchart TB
    Team["Product Team Coding Agent"]
    Endpoint["/skills.git"]
    Project["Resolved Project"]
    OrgSkill["Organization Onboarding Skill"]
    ProjectSkill["Project Onboarding Skill"]
    PolicySkill["Governance Policy Skill"]
    Repo["Generated Skills Repo"]

    Team -->|"Project API Key"| Endpoint
    Endpoint --> Project
    Project --> ProjectSkill
    Project --> OrgSkill
    Project --> PolicySkill
    ProjectSkill --> Repo
    OrgSkill --> Repo
    PolicySkill --> Repo
    Repo -->|"skills/onboarding/SKILL.md<br/>skills/governance/SKILL.md"| Team

    classDef agent fill:#f8fafc,stroke:#334155,stroke-width:2px
    classDef endpoint fill:#eef2ff,stroke:#4f46e5,stroke-width:1px
    classDef source fill:#f0fdf4,stroke:#16a34a,stroke-width:1px
    classDef repo fill:#fff7ed,stroke:#ea580c,stroke-width:1px
    class Team agent
    class Endpoint,Project endpoint
    class OrgSkill,ProjectSkill,PolicySkill source
    class Repo repo

Build It

1. Create your custom skills

   Create the Custom Agent Skills you want product teams to receive when they install from Confident AI.

   Use an onboarding skill, managed from Organization Settings, for project setup instructions such as:

   • required package managers and setup commands
   • repository conventions
   • how to run tests, evals, and linters
   • how to instrument traces and send results to Confident AI
   • team-specific coding workflow expectations

   Use a governance skill, defined once on a governance policy, for policy requirements such as:

   • required eval gates before merge
   • trace, alert, and risk assessment requirements
   • approved model, data handling, and release practices
   • what the coding agent should check before changing AI behavior

   Each generated skill uses the stored skill description as the SKILL.md frontmatter description and the stored skill body as the markdown body.

2. Configure onboarding in Organization Settings

   Confident AI resolves the onboarding skill in this order:

   1. Use the project's onboarding skill when the project has one.
   2. Otherwise, fall back to the organization's onboarding skill.

   Configure the organization-level onboarding skill from Organization Settings. This lets platform teams define a default onboarding skill once, then override it only for projects with special requirements.

3. Define governance once on the policy

   Confident AI resolves the governance skill from the governance policy assigned to the project.

   Define the governance skill once on the policy, then assign projects to that policy. Any project governed by the policy receives the same skills/governance/SKILL.md content when its Project API Key is used.

4. Install skills in a coding agent

   Give the product team their Project API Key and your Confident AI host. They must install one skill at a time with the Skills CLI by specifying the skill name with --skill:

   npx skills add "https://apikey:PROJECT_API_KEY@<host>/skills.git" --skill onboarding
   npx skills add "https://apikey:PROJECT_API_KEY@<host>/skills.git" --skill governance

   Use --skill onboarding for the onboarding skill and --skill governance for the governance skill.

   The username in HTTP Basic auth is ignored. The password field carries the Project API Key, so the URL uses apikey only as a conventional placeholder username.

   For a local git verification, the same endpoint can be cloned directly:

   git clone https://apikey:PROJECT_API_KEY@<host>/skills.git

5. Verify the generated repo

   After cloning or installing, confirm the repository includes the skills resolved for that project:

   skills/
     onboarding/
       SKILL.md
     governance/
       SKILL.md

   Open each SKILL.md and check that:

   • the onboarding skill matches the content configured from Organization Settings or a project-specific override
   • the governance skill matches the governance policy assigned to the project
   • the markdown gives the coding agent concrete commands, checks, and project expectations

   When a coding agent starts work, it can read these skills and apply the same onboarding and governance guidance across product teams.

How Authentication and Routing Work

The /skills.git endpoint is read-only and served over git smart-HTTP. Authentication uses HTTP Basic auth:

• the username is ignored
• the password must be a Project API Key
• the key is resolved with the same cache and database lookup used by the public API
• the resolved key determines the project and organization used to build the repository

Once authenticated, Confident AI resolves skills from the Skill table:

• onboarding uses the project skill first, then falls back to the organization skill.
• governance uses the skill defined on the governance policy assigned to the project.

The server writes one skills/<name>/SKILL.md file for each resolved skill, serves the temporary repository with git upload-pack --stateless-rpc, and deletes the temporary repository after the response ends.

Rollout Pattern

For a large organization, start with one organization-level onboarding skill from Organization Settings and one governance skill per governance policy. Then pilot project-level onboarding overrides with a few teams that have special setup needs.

Once the content is stable, product teams can use the same install pattern for every project:

npx skills add "https://apikey:PROJECT_API_KEY@<host>/skills.git" --skill onboarding
npx skills add "https://apikey:PROJECT_API_KEY@<host>/skills.git" --skill governance

The Project API Key is the router. Teams do not need to remember which repo, branch, or file path contains their instructions; Confident AI serves the right skill content for the project behind the key.

Next Steps

Last updated on July 27, 2026