View a markdown version of this page

Skill assets for AI agents - AWS Glue
What are skill assetsCreating and associating a skillHow relationships are definedSearching for skill assetsBuilt-in skillsDeleting a skill assetConsiderations

Skill assets for AI agents

Note

Business context and semantic search is in preview for AWS Glue and is subject to change.

What are skill assets

Skill assets are catalog assets that point to a URI location containing context that AI agents use when working with your data. The URI can reference an accessible location—such as a markdown file in Amazon S3, a document in a git repository, or a wiki page—where you store organizational and domain knowledge, references, and instructions specific to one or more datasets.

Common uses for skill content include:

  • Organizational context (for example, which teams own which data domains, how teams define key metrics, and what business processes produce the data)

  • Data usage rules and constraints specific to your organization

  • Common query patterns and SQL examples for your datasets

You associate skills with data assets using the amazon::RelatedTo form. When an agent retrieves an asset, it finds the associated skill IDs, fetches the skill, and loads the URI content into its reasoning context.

There are two kinds of skills:

  • Custom skills – Created by you, searchable via the Search API. Identifiers must not begin with amazon.

  • Built-in skills – Amazon-owned, immutable, accessed by ID directly (for example, amazon.skill::querying-aws-s3).

Creating and associating a skill

Step 1: Create the skill

aws glue put-asset \
    --asset-type-id "amazon::Skill" \
    --identifier "sales-table-skill" \
    --name "sales-table-skill" \
    --forms '{"amazon::Skill":{"FormTypeId":"amazon::Skill","Content":"{\"uri\": \"s3://my-bucket/skills/sales-table-skill.md\"}"}}'

Step 2: Associate the skill with a table

aws glue put-attachment \
    --asset-identifier "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/mydb/sales_transactions" \
    --attachment-name relatedTo \
    --form-type-id "amazon::RelatedTo" \
    --content '{"assetIdentifiers":["sales-table-skill"]}'

How relationships are defined

Relationships use the built-in amazon::RelatedTo form. A relation declared on either asset surfaces symmetrically for both in relationship-based search.

{ "assetIdentifiers": ["<related-asset-id>"] }

Attach inline when creating the asset (PutAsset --forms) or afterward (PutAttachment).

Searching for skill assets

aws glue search \
    --filter-clause '{"AttributeFilter":{"Attribute":"type","Operator":"equals","Value":{"StringValue":"amazon::Skill"}}}' \
    --max-results 20

Built-in skills

Reference the following Amazon-owned skills by ID:

  • amazon.skill::querying-aws-s3

  • amazon.skill::querying-aws-cloudwatch

  • amazon.skill::querying-aws-sagemaker-catalog

Deleting a skill asset

aws glue delete-asset \
    --identifier skill-asset-id
Note

Deleting a skill asset does not delete the content at the referenced URI.

Considerations

  • Review skill content when you rename columns, deprecate tables, or modify metrics.

  • During preview, access is managed through IAM roles with no asset-level access control.

  • Agents must have access to the skill URI (for example, s3:GetObject for Amazon S3 URIs).

  • Keep skill content concise to minimize context window usage.