How to Build and Review OpenClaw Skills

What You'll Build

A skill development and review workflow that lets you:

1. Build custom skills — create new OpenClaw skills tailored to your specific needs
2. Review community skills — vet skills from ClawHub for quality, security, and reliability
3. Decompose complex tasks — break multi-step workflows into reusable skill chains
4. Iterate and improve — test, debug, and refine skills with AI-assisted feedback

By the end of this guide, you'll be able to create production-quality skills and confidently evaluate any skill before installing it.

Why Build Custom Skills

ClawHub has hundreds of community skills, but sometimes you need something specific:

• Internal tools — your company's APIs, dashboards, and workflows aren't covered by public skills
• Custom integrations — you use niche tools or proprietary systems that need custom connectors
• Workflow optimization — combining multiple skills into a single, streamlined skill saves time
• Quality control — building your own skills means you know exactly what they do
• Competitive advantage — unique automation workflows that your competitors don't have

Why Review Skills Before Installing

Not every skill on ClawHub is production-ready. Before installing a community skill:

• Security — a skill could access your file system, network, or credentials in ways you don't expect
• Quality — some skills are prototypes or proof-of-concepts, not production-grade
• Maintenance — abandoned skills may not work with newer OpenClaw versions
• Dependencies — a skill might require external services or API keys you don't have
• Permissions — understand exactly what access a skill requests before granting it

Prerequisites

• OpenClaw installed and configured (Getting Started Guide)
• Familiarity with YAML and basic scripting
• Node.js 18+

Step 1: Install the Skill Development Tools

# 1. Skill builder — guides you through creating well-structured skills
npx clawhub@latest install skill-builder

# 2. Skill reviewer — quality and structure analysis
npx clawhub@latest install skill-reviewer

# 3. Task decomposer — break complex tasks into skill chains
npx clawhub@latest install task-decomposer

Step 2: Create Your First Custom Skill

Understand Skill Structure

An OpenClaw skill is centered around a SKILL.md file — this is the core instruction document that tells the AI agent how to perform a task. The Skill Builder skill guides you through creating well-structured skills following best practices.

A typical skill structure looks like:

my-custom-skill/
  ├── SKILL.md             # Core instructions for the agent
  ├── [topic].md           # On-demand detail files (loaded when needed)
  ├── references/          # Heavy documentation, examples
  └── scripts/             # Optional automation scripts

Write Your SKILL.md

The SKILL.md is the heart of your skill. Ask OpenClaw (with the Skill Builder skill installed) to help you write one:

Help me create a skill that searches a custom API for products.
The API is at https://api.example.com/search and requires an API key.

The Skill Builder guides you through:

• Modular structure — keeping the main SKILL.md focused and using separate files for detailed topics
• Progressive disclosure — loading detail files only when the agent needs them
• Token-efficient design — minimizing context window usage
• Clear input/output — defining what the skill expects and returns

Example SKILL.md

# Product Search Skill

Search the product catalog API for items matching a query.

## Configuration
- `API_URL`: Base URL of the product API
- `API_KEY`: API key for authentication (set as environment variable)

## Usage
When the user asks to search for products, use the API:

GET {API_URL}/search?q={query}
Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}

## Response Format
Return results as a structured list with name, price, and URL for each product.

Test the Skill

Install your skill locally and test it:

clawhub install ./my-custom-skill

Then try using it in OpenClaw to verify it works as expected.

Step 3: Review a Community Skill

Before installing any skill from ClawHub, review it:

clawhub run skill-reviewer --skill "clawhub-username/skill-name"

The reviewer analyzes the skill's SKILL.md and supporting files, checking for:

=== Skill Review: awesome-slack-bot ===

## Structure Assessment
✓ SKILL.md is well-organized with clear sections
✓ Description is specific and actionable
✓ Input/output expectations are documented
✓ Usage examples included
⚠ Missing on-demand detail files — all content is in one large SKILL.md

## Quality Score
✓ Frontmatter is complete (name, description, version)
✓ Instructions are token-efficient — progressive disclosure used
✓ Error handling guidance included
⚠ No rate limiting guidance — may hit API limits under heavy use

## Description Quality: 8.5/10
Recommendation: Well-structured skill, ready for use

What to Look For

Red Flags

• Skill requests permissions it shouldn't need (e.g., a search skill requesting file write access)
• No tests or documentation
• Last updated more than 6 months ago
• Hardcoded URLs or credentials in source code
• Obfuscated or minified code

Green Flags

• Clear permission declarations matching actual usage
• Comprehensive test coverage
• Active maintenance and community engagement
• Transparent source code
• Well-documented configuration

Step 4: Decompose Complex Tasks

The Task Decomposer skill helps break complex requests into executable steps. Ask OpenClaw:

Decompose this task: Monitor competitor pricing pages daily and alert me when prices change

Example output:

=== Task Decomposition ===

Task: Monitor competitor pricing pages daily and alert when prices change

## Skill Chain

1. **browser-use** — Navigate to each competitor's pricing page
   Input: List of competitor URLs
   Output: Page content / screenshots

2. **web-scraper** — Extract pricing data from each page
   Input: Page content
   Output: Structured pricing data (JSON)

3. **file_read** — Load yesterday's pricing data for comparison
   Input: File path to stored data
   Output: Previous pricing data

4. **summarize** — Compare current vs. previous pricing and identify changes
   Input: Current data + previous data
   Output: Change report

5. **telegram** (or email) — Send alert if changes detected
   Input: Change report
   Output: Notification sent

## Required Skills
- browser-use (installed: yes)
- web-scraper (installed: yes)
- summarize (installed: yes)
- telegram (installed: no — install with: npx clawhub@latest install telegram)

## Estimated Setup Time: 20 minutes

From Decomposition to Workflow

Turn the decomposition into a reusable workflow:

# .openclaw/price-monitor.yml
name: competitor-price-monitor
schedule: "0 9 * * *"
steps:
  - skill: browser-use
    action: navigate
    urls:
      - "https://competitor1.com/pricing"
      - "https://competitor2.com/pricing"

  - skill: web-scraper
    action: extract
    format: json
    target: "pricing tables"

  - skill: summarize
    action: compare
    current: "{{step_2.output}}"
    previous: "./data/last-pricing.json"

  - skill: telegram
    action: send
    condition: "changes_detected"
    message: "{{step_3.output}}"

  - action: save
    data: "{{step_2.output}}"
    path: "./data/last-pricing.json"

Step 5: Publish Your Skill

When your skill is ready, publish it to ClawHub:

clawhub publish my-custom-skill

Before publishing, ensure:

• SKILL.md is complete and well-structured
• Description is specific and actionable
• No hardcoded secrets in any files
• Version number follows semver

Troubleshooting

Skill not working as expected

• Check that SKILL.md instructions are clear and specific
• Test with different prompts to see if the agent interprets the skill correctly
• Review the Skill Builder guidelines for common instruction pitfalls

"Permission denied" during skill execution

• Review what the skill accesses — files, network, credentials
• Ensure you've granted the required permissions when installing
• Some permissions require explicit user approval on first run

Skill reviewer shows false positives

• The reviewer is conservative — it flags anything that could be a concern
• Review the specific warnings and decide if they apply to your use case
• Not every warning is a real problem — use your judgment

Published skill not appearing on ClawHub

• Publishing can take a few minutes to propagate
• Verify your ClawHub account is verified
• Check that the skill name doesn't conflict with an existing skill