Skills
Skills and Playbooks are both ways to customize how Toffu works for you - but they serve different purposes.
What are Skills?
Skills are expertise blocks that shape how Toffu thinks and responds across every conversation. When you add a skill, Toffu applies that knowledge automatically - you don't need to mention it or trigger it.
Think of skills as background context that's always active. Once set, Toffu uses them in every chat without you having to repeat yourself.
What are Playbooks?
Playbooks are step-by-step workflows you run on demand. They're instructions for a specific task - a sequence of steps Toffu follows to complete a defined job.
Playbooks are active and intentional. You run them when you need a specific job done. They don't affect Toffu unless you trigger them.
Skills vs. Playbooks at a Glance
When to Use Each
Use a Skill when:
- You find yourself explaining the same context in every chat
- You want Toffu to always follow a specific rule or style
- You have domain knowledge Toffu should always know about your company
Use a Playbook when:
- You have a multi-step task you run regularly
- You want a consistent, repeatable process for a specific workflow
- You want to save time on something you do weekly or monthly
Skill Examples
Skills are usually detailed - a few sentences to a few paragraphs. The more specific, the more useful. Here are real examples:
Brand Voice
Write in a direct, conversational tone. Use short sentences. Prefer active voice. Never use corporate jargon - avoid words like "leverage", "synergy", "streamline", "best-in-class", "cutting-edge", and "robust". Don't use filler phrases like "In today's fast-paced world" or "It goes without saying."
When writing copy, lead with the concrete benefit or problem - not with our company name or product features. Readers care about their situation first.
Humor is fine but keep it dry. No exclamation marks except in truly exceptional cases. Contractions are encouraged (we're, you'll, it's). Write like you're explaining something to a smart colleague, not presenting to a board.
Target Audience
Our primary buyers are heads of marketing and VP-level marketers at B2B SaaS companies. Company size: 50 to 500 employees. They are measured on pipeline and revenue, not on vanity metrics. They're often skeptical of AI hype and respond better to specifics and ROI numbers than to abstract promises.
Secondary audience: marketing managers who report to the above, who are doing hands-on execution. They care about time savings and ease of use.
We don't sell to enterprise (500+ employees) or to SMBs under 20 employees. If content or outreach targets those segments, flag it.
Pain points that resonate most: too many tools, disconnected data, pressure to show ROI, content bottlenecks, difficulty scaling personalization.
Competitor Analysis Rules
When analyzing any competitor, always cover these five areas in this order:
- Positioning and messaging - what problem do they claim to solve, who do they target, what is their main differentiation
- Pricing and packaging - plans, price points, what's included at each tier, any notable limits
- Content strategy - what topics they publish on, formats they use, frequency, where they're strongest
- Recent campaigns or product launches - anything notable in the last 90 days
- Weaknesses or gaps - what their customers complain about in reviews, what they don't cover
Our main direct competitors are Jasper, Copy.ai, and Writer. Treat them as the baseline. When someone is mentioned as a competitor without context, check if it's one of these three first.
Always cite where information is coming from (their website, G2 reviews, LinkedIn, etc.). Don't invent data. If something is unclear, say so.
Report Format
All reports and analysis should follow this structure unless the user asks for something different:
- Start with an executive summary: 3 bullet points maximum, each under 20 words. This goes at the top, before any detail.
- Use H2 headers for main sections. Don't nest more than two levels deep.
- End every report with a "What to do next" section containing exactly 3 concrete, actionable recommendations. Each recommendation should include who does it, what they do, and an approximate timeframe.
Keep tables simple - no more than 5 columns. If data is complex, split into multiple tables rather than one wide one.
Do not add a conclusion section that just restates the summary. If there's nothing new to say at the end, end with the recommendations.
Channel Constraints
We are entirely organic in our acquisition - no paid advertising of any kind. Our channels are: SEO, LinkedIn content (company page + founder personal brand), email newsletter, and podcast.
Do not suggest paid ads, sponsored content, influencer payments, or any other paid distribution strategy unless the user specifically asks. If a paid approach would clearly be the right answer, you can mention it once with a note that we don't currently run paid - but don't repeat it or push for it.
LinkedIn is our highest-ROI channel right now. When relevant, bias toward LinkedIn-native formats: text posts with line breaks, polls, carousels, and short video. Not link posts - those get suppressed.
Our email newsletter goes out every Tuesday. If content is being created for email, format it for that cadence and that audience (subscribers who opted in, so they're already warm).
Building Skills by Chatting with Toffu
The easiest way to build a skill is to discover what you actually need through conversation - then save it.
How it works:
- Start a chat and work on something real - a piece of content, an analysis, a report
- When Toffu gets something wrong, correct it
- When it gets something right, note what worked
- At the end, ask Toffu to turn those preferences into a skill
Example conversation:
You: Write a LinkedIn post about our new HubSpot integration.
Toffu: [writes a formal announcement post]
You: Too formal. We don't lead with announcements - we lead with the problem it solves. Also shorter, no exclamation marks, and no phrase like "we're thrilled to announce."
Toffu: [rewrites]
You: Better. One more thing - always end with a question to drive comments.
Toffu: [rewrites again]
You: That's it. Can you turn what you've learned in this conversation into a skill I can save?
Toffu: Here's a skill based on this session:
"For LinkedIn posts: lead with the problem or tension the content addresses, not the product announcement. Keep it under 150 words. Use short paragraphs - one to two sentences each. No exclamation marks. Avoid phrases like 'thrilled to announce' or 'excited to share.' End with a question to prompt engagement."
Save that, and Toffu applies it in every future chat.
Prompts to extract a skill from a session:
- "Turn the feedback I just gave you into a skill I can save"
- "Based on this conversation, what skill would mean you don't need correcting next time?"
- "Write a skill that captures how we've been working in this chat"
- "What rules have I applied in this session? Write them up as a skill."
After a few sessions, your skill library reflects how you actually work - not a list of rules you wrote upfront and forgot about.
Creating Skills Manually
Go to Skills in the sidebar. Click Create Skill and fill in:
- Name - A short label for the skill
- Description - What this skill does (shown in the skills list)
- Content - The actual instructions or knowledge
Skills have scope settings that control who can see and use them - Personal (just you), Team, or Company. Team and Company skills apply to everyone automatically.
Creating Playbooks
Go to My Playbooks in the sidebar. Click Create Playbook and write out the steps Toffu should follow. Be specific about the sequence and what the final output should look like.
You can also browse pre-built playbooks in the Playbooks Library for common marketing workflows.