Skills in Brave Leo allow you to save and reuse prompts with custom shortcuts, making your AI interactions faster and more efficient. You can create personalized skills for tasks you perform frequently, or use built-in skills for common operations like explaining things or improving your writing.

Skills remain completely private to you. All skills are stored locally on your device and adhere to Leo's no-logs, no-retention data privacy policy. This maintains Brave's commitment to protecting your data while still enhancing your Leo experience.

What are Skills?

Skills let you create custom commands for tasks you do repeatedly. Instead of typing the same instructions every time, you can save them as a skill and trigger them with a simple /shortcut. For example, instead of struggling through technical jargon in a complex article, you can type /eli5 (“explain like I'm 5”) and instantly get a clear, plain-language explanation of what you're reading.

Benefits:

• Save time on repetitive tasks
• Maintain consistency in your prompts
• Take action quickly with simple commands
• Customize Leo's responses for specific needs

Requirements:

• Available on Desktop platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux) and Android
• Requires Brave Browser version 1.85 or higher
• Must opt in to use Leo before accessing Skills

How do I create a skill?

There are two ways to create a skill: saving from an existing conversation, or creating one from scratch.

Method 1: Save from an existing conversation

1. Send a message to Leo with the prompt you want to save.
2. After Leo responds, click/tap the options menu (“⋮”) on the message bubble.
3. Select Save as New Skill.
4. In the dialog that appears:
   • Name: Give your skill a descriptive name (e.g. "explain simply").
   • Shortcut: Choose a shortcut keyword (e.g. "eli5").
   • Prompt: The prompt text will be pre-filled from your message (which you can then edit).
   • Model: Select which AI model to use for this skill.
5. Click/tap Save.

Method 2: Create from scratch

1. Open the Skills selector by clicking/tapping the / icon in the Leo message input box.
2. Click + New.
3. Fill in the same fields as above.
4. Click Save.

How do I use Skills?

To use a skill, simply type / followed by your shortcut in the chat input:

/eli5

Without any additional context, Leo will analyze the current page and explain it in simple terms.

Page context with additional instructions

You can also combine page analysis with specific questions, such as:

/eli5 focusing on the technical implementation

Leo will explain the page content while focusing on the aspects you specified.

Multi-tab context

With multi-tab context enabled, you can use a skill across multiple open tabs. For example, if you created a shortcut called “/competitive” to do competitive analyses between websites, you can simply type the following:

/competitive

Leo will then reference content from all selected tabs when performing your competitive analysis.

Using Skills in multi-turn conversations

Skills work seamlessly within ongoing conversations. When you use a skill in a multi-turn chat, Leo will:

• Maintain the conversation context.
• Apply your skill prompt to your current message.
• Continue the conversation naturally.

For example:

You: This article about quantum computing is really confusing
Leo: I'd be happy to help clarify it. What specific parts are you struggling with?
You: /eli5 especially the part about superposition
Leo: [Provides clear, simple explanation of quantum superposition using everyday analogies]
You: How does that relate to the computing speed advantage?
Leo: [Builds on the previous explanation to explain speed benefits]

Common use cases

Skills become powerful tools when integrated with your daily browsing and work activities.

For students:

• Use /eli5 when reading complex academic papers or technical documentation.
  • Turn dense research into clear explanations without losing key concepts.
• Create a /study-guide to extract key concepts and generate practice questions from course materials.
  • Transform passive reading into active study sessions with instant review materials.
• Set up /cite to automatically generate properly formatted citations from the current page.
  • Eliminate citation formatting errors and save hours of manual bibliography work.
• Use /peer-review to get constructive feedback on your writing before submission.
  • Catch unclear arguments and weak points before your professor does.

For remote workers

• After a Brave Talk meeting, use /meeting-notes on the transcript to generate action items and key discussion points.
  • Never scramble to remember who committed to what.
• Use /translate to communicate with international colleagues or analyze foreign market content.
  • Break down language barriers for seamless global collaboration.
• Set up /decide to evaluate options using a comprehensive decision framework with pros/cons analysis, risk assessment, and weighted scoring.
  • Make confident decisions backed by structured analysis instead of gut feeling alone.
• Process contract PDFs with /review-legal to quickly extract key terms and obligations.
  • Identify critical contract details without reading 50 pages of legal language line by line.

For content creators

• Use /social-media-post to transform content into engaging posts.
  • Repurpose your long-form content across platforms without starting from scratch each time.
• Create /seo to optimize content for search engines.
  • Improve discoverability without becoming an SEO expert or hiring a specialist.
• Design /research-brief to synthesize information from multiple sources.
  • Combine insights from dozens of articles into one coherent narrative instead of juggling tabs and notes.

Advanced combinations

You can also combine Skills with other Leo features for enhanced productivity.

• Skills + Memories: When you enable Leo's memory features, your skills can reference information from past conversations for even more personalized responses.
• Skills + Brave Talk transcripts: Use skills directly on meeting transcripts to extract structured information (e.g. /meeting-notes, /action-items, /key-quotes).
• Skills + Multi Tab Context: Analyze information across multiple sources simultaneously (e.g. compare products with /competitive, synthesize research with /research-brief).

Built-in skills

Leo comes with several pre-configured skills for common tasks, including:

• /explain: Explains concepts in simple, understandable terms.
• /improve: Enhances and polishes your writing for clarity and impact.
• /change-tone-persuasive: Rewrites content with a persuasive, compelling tone.
• /social-media-post: Transforms content into engaging social media posts.

You cannot edit or delete built-in skills, but you can create your own custom versions.
 

Example skills

Below are some sample prompts you can create for different purposes.

Explain like I'm 5 (/eli5):

Explain this content in simple, everyday language that anyone can understand. 
Break down complex terms into plain English, use relatable analogies, and avoid 
jargon. Make it clear and accessible while preserving the key information.

Professional polish (/professional)

Transform this casual message into polished, professional communication. 
Maintain the core message but improve grammar, tone, and formatting. 
Make it appropriate for business contexts while keeping it concise and clear.

Decision framework (/decide)

Help me make a decision about this topic by creating: clear problem statement, 
decision criteria with weighted importance, pros and cons for each option, 
second-order consequences, reversibility assessment, opportunity cost analysis, 
and a decision matrix with scoring. End with a recommendation and confidence level.

Competitive analysis (/competitive)

Analyze this company/product information and provide: market positioning, unique 
value propositions, pricing strategy analysis, target audience identification, 
strengths and weaknesses (SWOT), technology stack assessment, and strategic 
recommendations for competing effectively.

Managing your skills

Editing a skill

1. Open the Skills selector by clicking/tapping the / icon in the Leo message input box.
2. Find the skill you want to edit.
3. Click/tap Edit.
4. Make your changes and click/tap Save.

Deleting a skill

1. Open the Skills selector by clicking/tapping the / icon in the Leo message input box.
2. Find the skill you want to delete.
3. Click/tap Edit.
4. Click/tap Delete.
5. Confirm the deletion.

Shortcut requirements

1. Shortcuts can only contain letters, numbers, and hyphens.
2. Each shortcut must be unique.
3. Maximum prompt length must be 5000 characters or less.
4. If you try to create a duplicate shortcut, you'll see an error that says "Shortcut already exists."

Model selection

When creating a skill, you can choose which AI model to use.

• Use default model: The skill will use whatever model you have selected in Leo.
• Specific model: Choose a particular model (Claude Sonnet, Llama, Qwen, etc.) to always use with this skill.

This allows you to optimize different skills for different models' strengths. For example, you might use Claude Sonnet for complex competitive analysis and Llama for quick explanations.

Privacy and security

Brave ensures that Skills maintain the same privacy protections as all Leo features. Read Leo's privacy policy to learn more.

Leo Premium features

Skills are available to all Leo users, both free and Premium. However, Leo Premium subscribers enjoy additional benefits.

• Higher rate limits: Create and use skills more frequently.
• Access to more models: Premium users can select Claude Sonnet for their skills.
• Enhanced context: Premium users can include more context in their skill prompts.

Troubleshooting

My skill shortcut isn't working

• Ensure you're using the / prefix.
• Check for typos in your shortcut.
• Verify the skill exists in your Skills list.

I get an error when creating a skill

• Make sure your shortcut doesn't already exist.
• Check that your shortcut only contains letters, numbers, and hyphens.
• Verify your prompt is under 1000 characters.

Skill not appearing in suggestions

• Refresh Leo by starting a new chat.
• Check that the skill was successfully saved.
• Ensure you're typing / to trigger the suggestions.

Related documentation

For more information about Leo's features, check the following help articles:

• What are the differences between Leo's AI Models?
• How to Use Multi Tab Context with Brave Leo
• How do I use Leo customization and memory features?