SkillBase

SkillBase is the abstract base class for all agent skills. Skills are modular, reusable capabilities — such as weather lookup, web search, or calendar access — that can be added to any AgentBase agent with a single call to agent.addSkill().

Extend SkillBase to create custom skills. Metadata (name, description, version, required packages, required environment variables, multi-instance support) is declared as static class constants on the subclass — the SkillRegistry and SkillManager read these constants directly. You override getTools() to expose SWAIG tools and optionally override lifecycle and prompt methods.

Static Class Constants

Subclasses declare their identity and requirements by overriding these static members. The SkillRegistry reads them directly — no manifest object is exchanged.

Constructor

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constructor(config?: SkillConfig)

The skill name, description, and version come from the subclass’s static constants — not from constructor arguments.

Instance Properties

Methods

defineTool (protected)

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protected defineTool(toolDef: SkillToolDefinition): void

Imperatively register a tool. Use from setup() when the tool shape depends on config evaluated at runtime. The method merges this.swaigFields into the definition and pushes it onto the internal dynamic-tools list; the default getTools() returns that list. Skills with a static tool list should override getTools() directly instead.

getConfig

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getConfig<T = unknown>(key: string, defaultValue?: T): T

Read a configuration value by key, with an optional fallback default.

hasAllEnvVars / hasAllPackages

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hasAllEnvVars(): boolean
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async hasAllPackages(): Promise<boolean>

Boolean wrappers around validateEnvVars() and validatePackages().

Examples

Custom skill

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import { SkillBase, type SkillToolDefinition } from '@signalwire/sdk';
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class MyWeatherSkill extends SkillBase {
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  static override SKILL_NAME = 'my_weather';
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  static override SKILL_DESCRIPTION = 'Look up weather';
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  static override SKILL_VERSION = '1.0.0';
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  override getTools(): SkillToolDefinition[] {
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    return [{
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      name: 'get_weather',
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      description: 'Get current weather for a city',
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      parameters: { city: { type: 'string', description: 'City name' } },
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      handler: async (args) => ({ response: 'Sunny, 72F' }),
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    }];
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  }
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}

Using a skill

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import { AgentBase } from '@signalwire/sdk';
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const agent = new AgentBase({ name: 'weather-agent' });
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agent.setPromptText("You are a helpful assistant.");
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agent.addSkill("weather");
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// Or with custom configuration
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agent.addSkill("weather", { units: "celsius" });
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agent.run();