# Instructions, skills or formats?
Three ways to make the agent work the way your team works, and which one you want.
Plansmith gives you three ways to shape how the planning agent behaves. They look similar from a
distance and they do quite different jobs.
The short version: **instructions are rules, skills are procedures, formats are shapes.**
| Use | For | The agent reads it |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Instructions** | Standing decisions it should always follow, like "mobile ships after web, stop proposing it". | Every turn. |
| **Skills** | A playbook for a situation: how you write release notes, how you run a readiness review. | When the situation calls for it, or when you type `/` and pick one. |
| **Formats** | The shape of the documents it writes, meaning the sections every spec and epic has. | Whenever it writes a spec or an epic. |
If you find yourself repeating the same correction in every conversation, that is an instruction.
If you are explaining a process, that is a skill.
## A format is a shape, not a procedure [#a-format-is-a-shape-not-a-procedure]
This is the line worth being precise about, because the two used to sit in one document.
**Your format decides what a spec or an epic CONTAINS**: which sections, in which order, under
which shape, and the grammar of your acceptance criteria. It is yours, you can rewrite it whole,
and the agent reads whichever copy is in force every time it writes.
**How the agent RUNS that turn is ours**: what it asks you before it starts, that it shows you the
whole epic and waits for you to confirm it, how it corrects a document later. Those live in the
[Spec writer](/docs/spec-writer) and [Epic writer](/docs/epic-writer) skills, which ship built in
and cannot be edited, so trimming your format down to the sections your team wants never changes
how the conversation works.
Want to change the conversation for your team? Wrap the writer skill. Each page lists the points
you can extend.
## Why the reading model matters [#why-the-reading-model-matters]
Instructions are injected into **every** turn, so they shape a decision before the agent thinks.
That is why they must stay short, and why they are the right home for a standing rule.
Skills and formats are read **on demand**. The agent only sees a one-line summary of each until it
decides one is relevant, which is why a skill can be long and detailed without slowing every
conversation down.
## Where each one applies [#where-each-one-applies]
All three can be set for the whole company or for a single project, and the narrowest one wins.
Instructions go further: you can also set them just for yourself, or just for one plan.
| | You | A plan | Project | Company |
| ---------------- | --- | ------ | ----------- | ----------- |
| **Instructions** | Yes | Yes | Yes | Owners only |
| **Skills** | No | No | Yes | Owners only |
| **Formats** | No | No | Owners only | Owners only |
**Spec and Epic formats are edited under [Formats](/docs/formats), not Skills.** They no longer
appear in your Skills list: a format is a document, not a procedure, and having it in both places
suggested that editing it changed how the agent behaves. Each format has a document page anyone
with workspace access can read and share; workspace owners maintain the company and project copies.
## Who can change what [#who-can-change-what]
Anything set for the whole company changes every conversation for everyone, so only owners can save
it.
Company instructions go one step further: the agent can **suggest** a change as it learns how you
work, but an owner has to approve it before it takes effect. The agent never writes a skill, at any
level.
Standing decisions, followed in every conversation.
Playbooks the agent opens when they are relevant.
The sections every Spec and Epic is written to.