Set up Skills and manage access

Admins decide who can use Skills, who can create them, and how sharing works. Skill Creator lets a person manage their own Skills, and you can assign it to a user or an identity provider group. Skills Moderator is for someone who manages Skills across a wider audience.

Prerequisites

Have the Admin, Super Admin, or Setup Admin role to manage Skills access. See About Role Based Access Control (RBAC).

Set up Skills management

Before teammates can create and share Skills, an admin enables Skills in the Admin console.

1. Navigate to Admin console → Skills.
2. On the Setup tab, review the current configuration:
   • Skills access in Assistant: Choose whether Skills are off, limited to a test group, or on for all teammates. See Roll out Skills to a test group.
   • Who can create Skills. The choices are Everyone with Skills access, Selected users and groups, and Admins and Skill Moderators only. For Selected users and groups, assign the Skill Creator role to those users or identity provider groups. See Choose who can create Skills and Assign Skill roles.
   • Who can use Skills. The choices are Everyone, Selected users and groups, and No one. See Choose who can use Skills.
   • GitHub imports: Allow teammates who can create Skills to preview, import, and sync Skills from GitHub. They also need Skills access. During a test-group rollout, only teammates in the test group can use these Skills.
   • Skill sharing: Turn on Allow teammates to share skills to enable Skill sharing. This setting doesn't give default users permission to share with every audience. See Manage default user permissions for the audiences they can share with. Teammates can use a Skill shared with them even when they can't share Skills themselves.

The Manage tab lists Skills shared at the organization level, including Skills an admin didn't create. Search and the By Glean and Third-party filters narrow that list. Scan status and findings for uploaded and third-party Skills appear on the same tab. Skills from Glean aren't scanned. See Skill scanning and safety review.

Sharing access and enabling a Skill are separate controls. A teammate can use a shared Skill only when they have access and have the Skill turned on. If the creator turns the Skill off for themselves, it remains available to recipients who meet those conditions. The creator's personal setting does not change recipient settings.

Roll out Skills to a test group

Admins can validate Skills with a small group before a wider rollout. Under Skills access in Assistant on the Setup tab, choose one of three rollout states:

• Disabled — Skills in Assistant aren't available to anyone in your organization.
• Enabled for test group only — Only teammates in the test group can use Skills in Assistant. Use this state to pilot Skills with a small audience before a broader rollout.
• Enabled for all teammates — Skills in Assistant are available to everyone in your organization.

Where Deep Research runs as a skill, it follows this setting. Teammates without Skills access can't run it. With Enabled for test group only, only the test group can run Deep Research. Turn Skills on for anyone who should keep Deep Research, including people who already have the Deep Research setting on. See Deep Research.

If your organization uses a Customer Key and Deep Research is still a chat mode, this setting doesn't control it. Teammates outside the test group can still start a report from the mode picker. See Run Deep Research on a Customer Key.

Add teammates to the test group

1. Navigate to Admin console → Skills.
2. On the Setup tab, expand Skills access in Assistant.
3. Select Enabled for test group only.
4. In the Search for teammates to add field, start typing a teammate's name and select them from the suggestions. Repeat to add more teammates.
5. To remove a teammate from the test group, open the three-dot menu next to their name and select Remove.
6. Click Save.

note

• The test group supports up to 100 individual teammates. Departments and identity provider groups aren't supported as test group audiences.
• Save is disabled until you change the rollout state or the list of teammates. When Enabled for test group only is selected, Save is also disabled if the test group is empty.
• Switching to Disabled clears the saved test group. Switching back from Disabled requires you to add teammates again before saving.
• Switching between Enabled for test group only and Enabled for all teammates preserves the saved test group. If you later switch back to Enabled for test group only, your previous teammates are still listed.

Choose who can create Skills

Who can create a Skill is separate from who can use Skills and from who a particular Skill is shared with.

On the Setup tab, choose one creation audience:

• Everyone with Skills access — Any teammate who can use Skills can create their own Skills.
• Selected users and groups — Teammates with the Skill Creator role can create, edit, and delete their own Skills. Admins and Skills Moderators can also create Skills.
• Admins and Skill Moderators only — Only admins and Skills Moderators can create Skills.

Skill Creator doesn't include Skills Moderator permissions, and it doesn't allow creation while Admins and Skill Moderators only is selected. Changing the creation audience leaves existing Skill Creator and Skills Moderator assignments in place.

Glean checks creation permission on every path that creates a Skill:

• Create with Assistant, including the canvas where the Skill is drafted
• An agent workflow that creates a Skill
• Uploading a Skill file
• Previewing or importing a Skill from GitHub

GitHub preview and import also require the GitHub imports setting.

Teammates without creation permission can still use Skills shared with them or published to an audience they belong to. Skills Moderators can keep using Skills when creation is limited to admins and moderators.

Choose who can use Skills

The usage audience controls who can use Skills in the workspace. Choosing it doesn't assign Skill Creator, and it doesn't change who an individual Skill is shared with.

On the Setup tab, choose one usage audience:

• Everyone — Teammates can use Skills that are available to them.
• Selected users and groups — Only the users and groups you select in this setting can use Skills.
• No one — Teammates who aren't admins or Skills Moderators can't use Skills.

Admins and Skills Moderators keep access when the audience is Selected users and groups or No one. Changing the usage audience doesn't remove role assignments that are already saved.

If Skills access in Assistant is Disabled, Skills stay off even when the usage audience is Everyone. Aside from admins and Skills Moderators, a teammate can use a shared Skill only when the usage audience includes them.

Skills roles and permissions

Skill Creator applies only to a person's own Skills. A Skills Moderator manages Skills in their scope, including Skills they didn't create. The table shows what each role can do under the restricted creation audience and when usage is No one.

Role	Own Skills	Other people's Skills	Create when the audience is Admins and Skill Moderators only	Use when the usage audience is No one
Default user	Use Skills available to them. Create only when the audience is Everyone with Skills access.	No	No	No
Skill Creator	Create, edit, and delete their own Skills when the creation audience includes them. Share only within Default Member permissions.	No	No	No
Skills Moderator	Create, edit, delete, and share to any scope.	Manage shared Skills in their scope, and turn on automatic enablement.	Yes	Yes
Admin / Super Admin	Create, edit, delete, and share to any scope.	Manage organization-level Skills, including ones they didn't create. Assign Skill roles and turn on automatic enablement.	Yes	Yes

note

• From the Manage tab, admins can view Skills they didn't create when those Skills are shared at the organization level.
• A private Skill that isn't shared with anyone stays visible only to its owner.
• Skills Moderators can manage Skills only within their assigned scope.
• Deletion: You can delete any Skill you own. Admins and Skills Moderators can also delete shared Skills within their assigned scope directly from the Admin console. Editors of shared Skills cannot delete them. If the Delete button is missing or unavailable, you don't have permission to delete that Skill.

Skills available through the Glean plugins for Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex follow the same rollout, usage, creation, and sharing controls. Installing a plugin doesn't grant access to a Skill the person couldn't already use. See Glean plugin for coding hosts.

Assign Skill roles

Only Admins and Super Admins can assign roles from User roles. Setup Admins can change Skills setup but can't assign roles.

Assign Skill Creator to a user

Assign Skill Creator when the creation audience is Selected users and groups and a teammate needs to create their own Skills.

1. Navigate to Admin console → Users & permissions → User roles.
2. Find the user, open the three-dot menu, and select Edit roles.
3. Under Additional roles, select Skill Creator.
4. Click Save.

The user also needs to be included in the usage audience. If you later select Admins and Skill Moderators only, the Skill Creator assignment remains, but it doesn't allow creation until you choose an audience that includes it.

Assign Skill Creator to an identity provider group

1. Navigate to Admin console → Users & permissions → User roles.
2. Click Default Member permissions, then open User group permissions.
3. Select the identity provider that contains the group.
4. Click Add mapping and select the group.
5. Under secondary roles, select Skill Creator.
6. Click Save changes.

Group members inherit Skill Creator after their membership syncs to Glean. See Group-based permissions.

Assign the Skills Moderator role

Assign Skills Moderator when a teammate should manage Skills in a scope, including Skills they didn't create. Moderators can use Skills when creation is restricted.

1. Navigate to Admin console → Users & permissions → User roles.
2. Find the user, open the three-dot menu, and select Edit roles.
3. Under Additional roles, select Skills Moderator.
4. Click Save.

Manage default user permissions

These sharing options apply to default users and to Skill Creators. They don't grant permission to create Skills, and they don't change the usage audience.

1. Navigate to Admin console → Users & permissions → User roles.
2. Select Default Member permissions.
3. Under Can share skills, configure the following options. All toggles default to Off:
   • With teammates — share with named individuals.
   • With departments — share with departments configured in your workspace.
   • With entire company — share company-wide.

Changes can take up to 15 minutes to take effect.

Glean doesn't support sharing Skills with identity provider groups. Skills Moderators can share within their scope regardless of these defaults.

note

You can also turn the With teammates permission on or off from the Skill sharing card on Admin console → Skills → Setup.