Core Concepts
Nebo is built from a small set of composable primitives. Understanding these concepts will help you build, share, and orchestrate AI agents effectively.
Skill
A Skill is the smallest unit of capability in Nebo. It is a SKILL.md file that teaches an agent how to do something -- summarize meeting notes, generate SQL queries, draft emails in a brand voice, or anything else you can describe in natural language.
A SKILL.md contains YAML frontmatter (name, description, version) followed by markdown instructions. Skills can reference other files, include example outputs, and declare which platform capabilities they need.
--- name: "Meeting Summarizer" description: "Summarizes meeting transcripts into action items" version: "1.0.0" --- # Meeting Summarizer Given a meeting transcript, extract: 1. Key decisions made 2. Action items with owners 3. Open questions for follow-up
Skills are portable. Install one into any agent and it immediately gains that ability. See the Skills guide for the full specification.
Workflow
A Workflow is a sequence of activities that runs when a trigger fires. Triggers can be time-based (cron schedules), event-based (a new message in a Loop, a file upload), or manual. Each step in a workflow calls a skill, invokes a plugin, or passes data to the next step.
Workflows let you move from "ask the agent to do something" to "the agent does it automatically." A daily standup summary, a PR review triggered on push, or a weekly report emailed every Monday -- these are all workflows.
See the Workflows guide for triggers, conditions, and step configuration.
Agent
An Agent is a job profile that bundles a persona, skills, and workflows into a single deployable unit. The persona defines personality, tone, and role. The skills define what the agent can do. The workflows define when it acts autonomously.
Agents are defined in an AGENT.md file. When you install an agent, Nebo also installs all of its bundled skills and plugins automatically.
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Persona | Defines the agent's name, role, tone, and behavioral guidelines |
| Skills | The abilities the agent has -- what it knows how to do |
| Workflows | Automated sequences that run on triggers or schedules |
| Plugins | Native binaries the agent depends on for external capabilities |
See the Agents guide for the full AGENT.md specification.
App
An App is an agent that has its own HTML frontend. While a standard agent communicates through chat, an app renders a visual interface -- dashboards, forms, interactive tools -- directly inside Nebo.
Apps use the App SDK to communicate with their backing agent and access platform capabilities. They can read and write to storage, listen for events, and render rich UI. See the Apps overview for architecture and packaging.
Plugin
A Plugin is a native binary that extends what agents can do beyond language model capabilities. Plugins provide concrete tools -- API connectors, file processors, database adapters, hardware interfaces -- that agents call during skill execution.
Plugins are packaged with a PLUGIN.md manifest and distributed as signed binaries through the marketplace. Publishing a plugin requires a developer account and passes through a review process.
See the Plugins overview, capabilities reference, and publishing guide.
Loop
A Loop is a shared workspace where agents and humans collaborate in a persistent thread. Every Loop has channels, members, and a message history with conversation-scoped ordering.
You can invite agents and people to a Loop, connect it to external channels (Telegram, Discord), and give agents different permission levels. Loops are the primary place where multi-agent collaboration happens -- one agent researches, another writes, a third reviews, all in the same thread.
Install Code
Every artifact published to the Nebo Marketplace receives a short, shareable install code. The prefix identifies the type:
| Prefix | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
SKIL- | Skill | SKIL-B72F-3QXE |
PLUG- | Plugin | PLUG-41AE-7KMN |
AGNT- | Agent | AGNT-SNTW-WY0B |
Paste a code into Nebo and it resolves the full dependency tree. Installing an agent automatically pulls in all of its skills and plugins. Share a code with a teammate and they get the exact same setup.
Platform Capabilities
Nebo provides a set of infrastructure services that any skill or plugin can request. These are declared in the artifact's manifest and granted at install time.
- Storage -- persistent key-value and file storage scoped to the agent
- Network -- HTTP client for calling external APIs
- Vision -- screenshot and screen reading for UI-aware agents
- Notifications -- push alerts to the user
- Scheduling -- cron-style triggers for workflows
See the Platform Capabilities reference for the full list and permission model.