Skills

A skill is know-how the Dunea AI uses while it builds an app: written instructions for a kind of business, market or job. "UK restaurant menus and allergen labelling", "Arabic right-to-left storefronts" and "Local SEO for trades" are skills.

An owner installs a skill on an app, like a plugin. From then on, whenever the AI works on that app and the request matches one of the skill's triggers, it reads your instructions and follows them. Skills are data only: no code, and no service to host.

Define a skill

Keep the manifest in dunea.skill.json, or write it in TypeScript with defineSkill:

import { writeFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { defineSkill } from '@dunea/plugin-sdk';

const manifest = defineSkill({
  id: 'uk-menus',
  version: '1.0.0',
  name: 'UK restaurant menus',
  tagline: 'Menus that meet UK allergen rules, with prices, dietary marks and a printable version.',
  description:
    'Teaches the Dunea AI how UK restaurants, cafés and takeaways present menus: the 14 allergens, ' +
    'dietary marks, VAT-inclusive prices and a printable menu page. For food businesses in the UK.\n\n' +
    'One-time price of $9.',
  icon: 'https://cdn.example.com/uk-menus/icon.png',
  screenshots: ['https://cdn.example.com/uk-menus/menu.png'],
  developer: {
    name: 'Ana Studio',
    supportEmail: 'hello@ana.example.com',
    privacyUrl: 'https://ana.example.com/privacy',
  },
  pricing: { model: 'one_time', amount: 900, currency: 'USD' },
  categories: ['industry', 'localization'],
  triggers: ['menu page', 'allergens', 'food menu', 'dietary information'],
  recommendedThemes: ['warm-paper'],
  instructions: `
## Menus for UK food businesses

- Every dish lists the allergens it contains from the 14 UK allergens: celery, cereals containing gluten, ...
- Mark vegetarian (V), vegan (VG) and gluten-free (GF) dishes with a key at the top of the menu.
- Prices include VAT and are shown as £9.50, never 9.5.
- Add a short note under the menu: "Please tell us about any allergies before you order."
- Offer a printable menu page (A4, black on white, no background images).
`,
});

writeFileSync('dunea.skill.json', `${JSON.stringify(manifest, null, 2)}\n`);

The shared fields work as for every listing. Skills can be free, one-time or monthly.

How the AI uses a skill

• A skill applies only to the apps it is installed on.
• The AI uses your triggers to decide when the skill applies. When the owner's request, or the part of the site it is working on, matches one, it follows your instructions alongside the app's theme.
• Your instructions add know-how. They never replace Dunea's own rules: the AI still follows the owner's requests, the app's permissions and Dunea's safety and pricing rules.
• recommendedThemes and recommendedPlugins are shown on your listing and suggested to the owner. They are never installed automatically.

Writing good instructions

• Lead with what matters most. The AI weighs the start of the instructions most.
• Be concrete. "Prices include VAT and are shown as £9.50" beats "Format prices properly".
• Say what to do, then what to avoid. A short list of don'ts is useful; a long one is hard to follow.
• Keep to your subject. A menu skill shouldn't change the site's colours or navigation. That is the theme's job.
• Write triggers the way owners talk: "menu page", "allergens", not MENU_PAGE.

The DUN-K001 rule

Skills must not instruct the AI to bypass safety, pricing or permission rules. A skill teaches the AI how to do something well; it can't change what the AI is allowed to do.

dunea-plugin check flags instructions, triggers and descriptions that read as an attempt to get around Dunea's rules, and the marketplace runs the same check when you upload. These are errors: the version can't be submitted until you rewrite them. The check looks for:

Because the check matches words, it can flag innocent text: a trades skill about a "bypass valve" fails on "bypass". Rephrase it ("relief valve"); reviewers can't approve a version with errors.

Reviewers also read every skill in full, for instructions that would make the AI act against the owner even when no pattern matches, and Dunea suspends live skills that break the rule.