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Skills

Nova is built on a skill-based architecture. Instead of hardcoded integrations, every external capability is a self-contained skill that Nova can discover and use. Skills work across all interfaces — Nova Cloud, astroctl nova, and Slack.

The Nova Skills panel
The Skills panel: built-in skills (cloud providers, GitHub, Slack, infrastructure tooling) and your own MCP servers, all managed from one place.

Enable Skills​

  1. Go to Open Nova →
  2. Click Skills in the sidebar
  3. Find the skill and click Enable
  4. Authorize if prompted (OAuth where supported)
  5. Start using — the skill is available across all Nova interfaces

Available Skills​

Cloud Cost Calculator​

Calculate costs across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.

"How much would 10 t3.medium instances cost per month in us-east-1?"

Slack​

Use Nova from Slack — @mention Nova in any channel or DM. Nova can also send messages, search channels, and create channels on your behalf.

"@nova what's the status of the payments cluster?"

GitHub​

Search code, view issues, and explore repositories.

"Find all open issues labeled bug in our infrastructure repo"

Infrastructure Tools​

Generate Terraform, Helm, and Kubernetes configurations.

"Generate Terraform for an EKS cluster with 3 node groups"

One sentence in, a real multi-file Terraform module out: generated, syntax-highlighted, and validated against the AWS provider.

Bring your own MCP server​

Connect any remote MCP server as a skill — no code, in a couple of minutes. Nova discovers its tools and uses them like any built-in skill. See Custom MCP Servers.

"Add my team's internal MCP server and use its tools."

Your own MCP servers alongside built-in skills
Your own MCP servers sit right alongside built-in skills in the Skills panel.

How Skills Work​

A skill connects Nova to a tool you already use, such as a cloud provider, Slack, GitHub, or your own internal service. Each one gives Nova a set of actions it can take for you.

There is nothing to configure. When you ask Nova to do something, it picks the skills that fit the request and uses them automatically. Connect a skill once and it is ready in every conversation.

Your credentials stay yours. Where a service supports it, you sign in with that provider directly, so Nova works only with the access you grant. You can revoke that access at any time from the Skills panel. Your credentials are never shared with the AI model: it can ask a skill to act, but it never sees the keys behind it.

More Skills​

We're adding more skills regularly. Check the Skills panel in Nova for the latest.