Pro feature
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Using AI chat
AI skills
Skills are reusable blocks of instructions and knowledge you give to AI. Write them once, attach them to a message when you need them, and share them across your workspace.
Pro feature
AI Skills comes with Pro and Business. The gate is on the workspace owner’s plan: when the owner has Pro or Business, every member of that workspace can create and use skills, with no subscription of their own. See plans & pricing.
What are skills?
A skill is a set of instructions that AI follows when you attach it to a message. Think of it as giving AI a specific role, domain knowledge, or communication style for that request.
Skills are optional. AI works without them. But when you need AI to understand your industry, ask the right questions, or write in a specific tone — skills make that repeatable without re-explaining every time.
When to use skills
Domain knowledge
If your forms deal with a specific field — healthcare, legal, education, real estate — teach AI the terminology, regulations, and practices it should follow. A medical intake skill can name the consent language you always need; a real estate skill can list disclosure requirements by region.
Better form generation
Write down your house rules so every form AI builds follows them: always include a consent checkbox, split anything over 10 fields across pages, use 5-point Likert scales, start with contact info.
Guiding AI questions
When AI asks clarifying questions before building a form, a skill can steer what it asks about — event type, audience size, dietary needs and budget before a registration form, say.
Tone and writing style
Control how AI writes labels, descriptions, and help text: friendly (“What’s your email?”), formal (“Please provide your date of birth”), or bilingual with both English and Spanish on every label.
Smarter analysis
When you use AI to analyze submissions, a skill can tell it what matters: your NPS scoring tiers, or what makes a lead hot rather than cold.
Creating a skill
- 1
Open AI Skills
Click AI Skills in the workspace sidebar.
- 2
Click "Create skill"
An untitled skill appears and its editor opens in a drawer from the right. Click any existing skill to reopen it.
- 3
Add a title
Give it a clear name your team will recognize — like "Healthcare Compliance" or "Friendly Tone".
- 4
Write a short description
Explain when to use this skill in a sentence or two. This shows in the skill picker so teammates know when to reach for it.
- 5
Write the full description
This is the main content — the instructions, knowledge, rules, or examples you want AI to follow. Be specific.
Changes save automatically as you type — the drawer says so under its title. Click Close when you’re done.
Be specific in your instructions
The more concrete your skill, the better AI follows it. Instead of “be professional”, write “use formal labels like ‘Full Name’ not ‘What’s your name?’, always include placeholder text, and add validation messages.”
Attaching skills in chat
- 1
Open AI chat
Click the AI button in the bottom-right corner.
- 2
Click the brain icon
It sits in the chat input toolbar. A badge shows how many skills are attached.
- 3
Pick the skills you want
Search the list and check them. You can attach several at once — they combine.
Skills apply to one message
Attached skills are sent with the message you write next, and the picker clears afterwards. They are not switched on for the rest of the conversation. If a follow-up needs the same skill, attach it again before sending.
Skill fields
| Field | Purpose | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Name shown in the skill picker and the skills list | No limit |
| Short description | Explains when to use it — shown in the skill picker | 200 characters |
| Full description | Instructions and knowledge sent to AI with your message | No limit |
Example skills
Healthcare intake specialist
Short description: Use when building patient intake or medical history forms.
Full description:
- Always include fields for: full legal name, date of birth, insurance provider, policy number, primary care physician
- Add a consent checkbox referencing HIPAA privacy practices
- Use multi-page layout: demographics → medical history → insurance → consent
- Include “Prefer not to answer” option for sensitive questions
- Use formal labels. Add help text explaining why information is collected.
Startup feedback collector
Short description: Use for quick user research and product feedback forms.
Full description:
- Keep forms under 8 fields. Short = more completions.
- Use conversational labels (“What frustrated you?” not “Describe friction points”)
- Always include one open-ended text area for unexpected insights
- Use star rating (1-5) for satisfaction, not NPS unless asked
- Ask me about the feature or release this feedback is for before generating
Lead qualification analyst
Short description: Use when analyzing lead capture form submissions.
Full description:
- Hot lead: company size > 50, budget field filled, timeline under 3 months
- Warm lead: responded to follow-up questions, company size 10-50
- Cold lead: personal email, no budget, “just browsing” in intent field
- When summarizing submissions, group by qualification tier and highlight hot leads first
- Flag incomplete submissions that look like hot leads — suggest follow-up
Workspace sharing
Skills belong to the workspace, not to you. Any member can create, edit, or delete any skill, and any member can attach skills in their own AI chat. Each skill shows who created it. Set them up once and the whole team benefits.
Skills do not follow you between workspaces — each workspace keeps its own set — and deleting a workspace deletes its skills with it. Deleting a skill takes it away from everyone immediately.
Not available over MCP
Workspace skills are a feature of the built-in AI chat. An AI tool connected through the MCP server cannot read them — the “skills” it can load there are formbase’s own built-in reference guides.
Tips for writing good skills
Be specific — “Use 5-point Likert scale” beats “use rating questions”
Include examples — show AI what good output looks like
Set boundaries — tell AI what NOT to do (“never use jargon”, “don’t add more than 12 fields”)
Keep each one focused — one skill, one job, then attach several together when you need them
Iterate — try the skill in a conversation, refine based on what AI gets wrong