v1.4.0 — Skills

What's new

Skills — user-authored, on-demand instruction bundles

Mason now supports skills — folders of specialized instructions the LLM can load on demand when the user's request matches. Same progressive-disclosure pattern Anthropic uses, executed locally so it works across every model Mason supports (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, Qwen, custom endpoints) through the Databricks AI Gateway. No beta headers or sandboxed containers required.

How it works:

1. At chat time, an <available_skills> block lists each enabled skill's name + one-line description in the system prompt.
2. When relevant, the model calls the new built-in load_skill(slug) tool.
3. Mason reads the skill's SKILL.md from disk and returns it as the tool result; the model continues with full instructions in context.

Where skills live:

• ~/.mason/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md — user-authored, edited in Settings
• ~/.ai-dev-kit/repo/databricks-skills/<slug>/SKILL.md — auto-discovered, read-only (forward-compatible with ai-dev-kit's planned skills-only releases; existing MCP still works in parallel)

UI:

• Settings → Skills — list / create / edit / delete user skills with enable toggle and auto-load preference.
• + icon → Skills — quick per-skill enable/disable, mirroring the Tools modal.

Format is Anthropic-compatible (YAML frontmatter + markdown body), so user-authored skills are portable.

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Platform notes

• macOS (Apple Silicon) — signed + notarized DMG/zip attached.
• Windows (x64) — installer attached (Mason Setup 1.4.0.exe). Windows ARM64 not built in this release.
• The Windows PowerShell installer (scripts/install.ps1) added in 1.3.13 auto-detects architecture and pulls the matching asset.

Full changelog: v1.3.13...v1.4.0