Your First Skill: Build Your First Automation Task in 5 Minutes

You’ve Reached the Final Step

The last article in the Blue Duck beginner series! This tutorial will have you building your first Skill automation task in 5 minutes.

By now, your OpenClaw can already have a conversation with you. But that’s just the beginning.

When you chat with AI directly, you have to describe the task from scratch every time. Skills let you write tasks as workflows that you can repeat with a single command.

🎯 Goal of this article: Build and run your first Skill in 5 minutes.

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Direct Chat vs Skills

Let’s first clarify why this extra step is worth it:

	Direct Chat	Using a Skill
Each time you use it	Describe the task from scratch	Trigger with one command
Result consistency	May vary each time	Same workflow every time
Can connect to tools	❌ Chat only	✅ Can search the web, read files, save to Drive
Best for	One-off questions	Tasks you repeat daily/weekly

Think of it this way: Direct chat = verbally instructing a new employee every time. Skill = writing an SOP that the employee follows every time.

Duck Editor says: You wouldn’t explain “I want an egg crepe, no spice, add cheese, medium iced milk tea half sugar” from scratch every time at a breakfast shop — you’d just say “the usual.” A Skill is your “the usual.”

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What Are We Building?

A “Daily News Summary” Skill:

1. Search for the latest news on a specified topic
2. Use AI to organize it into 3 key highlights
3. Display the results

Once completed, you just say “run daily news summary” to get today’s news digest.

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Step 1: Create the Skill File

A Skill is a YAML file placed in the skills/ folder of your workspace directory.

1.1 Create the Folder

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills

1.2 Create the File

Open your preferred editor and create ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/daily-news.yaml:

# Open with VS Code
code ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/daily-news.yaml

# Or use nano (built-in terminal editor)
nano ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/daily-news.yaml

1.3 Paste the Following Content

name: "Daily News Summary"
description: "Search for the latest news on a specified topic and organize into key highlights"

trigger:
  type: manual

inputs:
  - name: topic
    type: string
    description: "What topic do you want news about?"
    default: "AI Technology"

steps:
  - id: search
    action: web_search
    params:
      query: "{{topic}} latest news today"
      max_results: 5

  - id: summarize
    action: llm_generate
    params:
      prompt: |
        Here are the latest news search results about "{{topic}}":

        {{steps.search.output}}

        Please organize into 3 key highlights in this format:
        1. **Title**: One-sentence summary
        2. **Title**: One-sentence summary
        3. **Title**: One-sentence summary

        End with an "Overall Trend Observation."

output:
  result: "{{steps.summarize.output}}"

Don’t worry about typos. The most common YAML error is incorrect indentation. Make sure to use spaces (not tabs), with 2 spaces per indentation level.

Understanding This Skill

Section	Description
name + description	The Skill’s name and description
trigger: manual	Manually triggered (can be changed to scheduled later)
inputs	Parameters the user can provide
steps	Execution steps, run sequentially from top to bottom
steps[0]: web_search	Step 1: Search the web
steps[1]: llm_generate	Step 2: Use AI to organize the search results
output	What gets returned at the end

Steps pass results to each other using {{steps.search.output}} — like passing a baton in a relay race.

In other words: The entire Skill is like a factory assembly line — the first station gathers raw materials (searching news), the second station processes and packages (AI organization), and the final product ships out (displaying the summary). You just flip the switch and the line runs itself.

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Step 2: Run Your First Skill

Option A: Run via Command Line

openclaw skill run daily-news

It will ask you for a topic (default is “AI Technology”) — press Enter for the default, or type your preferred topic.

Wait 10-20 seconds and you’ll see the organized news summary!

Option B: Run via Telegram

Message your OpenClaw bot directly:

Run daily news summary

Or specify a topic:

Run daily news summary, topic: electric vehicles

Option C: Via Web Interface

Open http://localhost:18789 and type the same command in the chat box.

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Step 3: Customize Your Skill

The power of Skills lies in their flexibility. Try modifying these:

Change the Prompt

Replace 3 key highlights with 5, or add “present in a table format.”

Change the Search Scope

Change max_results: 5 to 10 to search for more data.

Add a Scheduled Trigger

Change the trigger to run automatically every day at 9 AM:

trigger:
  type: schedule
  schedule: "0 9 * * *"  # Every day at 9 AM

Save Results to a File

Add one more step to the end of steps:

  - id: save
    action: file_write
    params:
      path: "~/Desktop/news-{{date}}.md"
      content: "{{steps.summarize.output}}"

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🎉 Congratulations — You’ve Completed the Getting Started Path!

You’ve successfully:

1. ✅ Learned what OpenClaw is
2. ✅ Chosen and obtained an LLM API Key
3. ✅ Installed OpenClaw
4. ✅ Completed initial setup and heard AI’s first response
5. ✅ Built and ran your first Skill

You’re no longer just an AI tool user — you’ve started automating your workflows.

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What’s Next?

Dive Deeper into Skills

• 📖 Skill Complete Guide — More Action types, conditional logic, error handling

Understand the Core Architecture

• 🤖 Agent Complete Guide — Let AI decide which Skill to use
• 🧠 Soul Complete Guide — Give AI memory and personality

Practical Workflows

• 💬 Telegram Integration — Use AI from your phone anytime
• 📚 Knowledge Management System — Automatically organize your knowledge

Further Reading

• 🔗 MCP Protocol — Understand the underlying protocol for AI tool integration
• 💰 Token Economics — Control your AI usage costs
• 🎯 Prompt Engineering — Get more precise responses from AI

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