By name: vellum-self-knowledge description: Answer questions about Vellum, the assistant's architecture, capabilities, and current configuration by routing to live sources of truth compatibility: "Designed for Vellum personal assistants" metadata: emoji: "🪞" vellum: category: "system" display-name: "Vellum Self-Knowledge" activation-hints: - "When the user asks what model the assistant is running on" - "When the user asks about Vellum, how the assistant works, or its architecture" - "When the user asks about the assistant's current configuration or settings" - "When the user asks what the assistant can do or what skills/tools are available" avoid-when: - "When the user wants to change configuration (use in-chat config instead)"
Critical Rule
Never answer from memory or general knowledge about Vellum. Always go to a source of truth. This skill contains zero static information — only pointers to where the truth lives.
Sources of Truth
1. The assistant CLI — Live Runtime State
The CLI is the single source of truth for anything about the running assistant's current state.
| Question type | Command |
|---|---|
| Current model, provider, config | assistant config get llm |
| Full config | assistant config list |
| Config schema (what's configurable) | assistant config schema [path] |
| Available/installed skills | assistant skills list --json |
| Platform connection | assistant platform status --json |
| Auth/identity | assistant auth info --json |
| Connected OAuth providers | assistant oauth status <provider> |
| Connected clients | assistant clients list --json |
| Trust rules | assistant trust list |
| Stored credentials | assistant credentials list |
| API keys | assistant keys list |
| MCP servers | assistant mcp list |
| Watchers | assistant watchers list |
| Token usage/costs | assistant usage totals / assistant usage breakdown --group-by provider |
| Version | assistant --version |
Run assistant --help or assistant <command> --help to discover more.
2. Vellum Docs Site — Conceptual Knowledge
For "what is", "how does", and "why" questions, fetch the relevant page from the docs site.
Base URL: https://www.vellum.ai/docs
| Topic | Path |
|---|---|
| What is Vellum | /getting-started/what-is-vellum |
| Installation | /getting-started/installation |
| Quick start | /getting-started/quick-start |
| Your first skill | /getting-started/your-first-skill |
| How it all fits together | /key-concepts/how-it-all-fits-together |
| The workspace | /key-concepts/the-workspace |
| Skills & tools | /key-concepts/skills-and-tools |
| Memory & context | /key-concepts/memory-and-context |
| Channels | /key-concepts/channels |
| Identity | /key-concepts/identity |
| Scheduling | /key-concepts/scheduling |
| Glossary | /key-concepts/glossary |
| Privacy & data | /trust-security/privacy-and-data |
| The permissions model | /trust-security/the-permissions-model |
| Security best practices | /trust-security/security-best-practices |
| Architecture | /developer-guide/architecture |
| Security (developer) | /developer-guide/security |
| Features & capabilities | /developer-guide/features |
| API & communication | /developer-guide/api |
| Development workflow | /developer-guide/development-workflow |
| Contributing | /developer-guide/contributing |
| Local hosting | /hosting-options/local-hosting |
| Advanced hosting | /hosting-options/advanced-options |
| Environments | /environments |
| Pricing | /pricing |
| Roadmap | /roadmap |
| FAQ | /help/faq |
| Common issues | /help/common-issues |
| Getting help | /help/getting-help |
| Skills reference index | /skills-reference |
| Specific skill reference | /skills-reference/<skill-name> |
Use web_fetch to pull the page content. If a URL 404s, try fetching the docs homepage and navigating from the sidebar.
3. Source Code — Deep Implementation Details
For questions the docs and CLI can't answer (internal architecture, how a specific feature is implemented, source-level details):
- Get the current version:
assistant --version - The open source repo is at
https://github.com/vellum-ai/vellum-assistant - The release for version X is at
https://github.com/vellum-ai/vellum-assistant/releases/tag/vX.Y.Z - Check out the matching tag locally:
cd /workspace/vellum-assistant && git fetch --tags && git checkout v<version> - Key source locations:
assistant/— Runtime (conversation loop, tool dispatch, memory, scheduling)gateway/— Ingress boundary (webhooks, Telegram, Twilio, reverse proxy)clients/— Native macOS clientskills/— Bundled skill definitionsARCHITECTURE.md— Cross-system indexassistant/ARCHITECTURE.md— Runtime internalsgateway/ARCHITECTURE.md— Gateway internalsassistant/docs/architecture/— Detailed architecture docs (security, memory, etc.)
- Read the relevant source files to answer the question.
Resolution Order
- CLI first — if the question is about current state, config, or capabilities, the CLI has it.
- Docs second — if the question is conceptual ("what is X", "how does Y work"), fetch the docs page.
- Source code last — only for deep implementation questions that the docs don't cover.