AI Skill Controls — What Your Bot Can and Can't Do

What Are AI Skills?

AI skills are the specific actions your Velaro bot can take inside connected platforms like Shopify, Monday.com, HubSpot, or ServiceNow. Each skill maps to one action — looking up an order, creating a ticket, updating a contact status, or canceling a subscription. Skills are what turn a chat bot into an action bot.

Three Levels of Skill Control

Velaro gives you three layers of control over which skills your bot can use:

1. Plan-based access (set by Velaro, automatic)

Your subscription tier determines which skill categories are available:

• All plans: Read-only skills — looking up orders, searching products, checking stock, finding customer records
• Pro and above: Write skills — creating tickets, updating contacts, booking appointments, pushing leads
• Enterprise: Destructive skills — canceling orders, issuing refunds, deleting records, bulk operations

2. Integration-level controls (you set this, applies to all your bots)

In each integration's settings page, the AI Tools tab has a Skill Controls section. You can set each skill to:

• Enabled — the AI can use it freely
• Ask first — the AI must get explicit confirmation from the visitor before running the skill
• Disabled — the AI cannot use this skill at all (it won't even try)

3. Bot-level skill permissions (per workflow AI node)

In the Workflows editor, each AI node has a Permitted Skills setting. Leave it empty to allow all enabled skills, or select specific skills to limit what that particular bot can do. A "Product FAQ Bot" AI node might only permit product search and lookup skills, even if your account has order management skills enabled.

How to Disable a Destructive Skill

Go to the integration page (e.g., Shopify, Monday.com) → AI Tools tab → scroll to Skill Controls. Find the skill (e.g., Cancel Order) and click the red X button. The AI will immediately stop using that skill across all bots for that integration. To require confirmation instead of disabling completely, click the amber ? button.

What Happens When a Visitor Asks for a Disabled Skill

If a visitor asks your bot to do something the skill is disabled for, the bot will politely decline and offer alternatives. For example: "I'm not able to cancel orders directly, but I can connect you with our support team who can help." The bot never reveals that there's a "disabled skill" — it just redirects naturally.

What "Ask First" Mode Does

When a skill is set to Ask First (?), the AI will tell the visitor what it's about to do and ask for confirmation before running the action. Example: "I'm about to issue a refund of $49.99 for order #1234. Can you confirm you'd like to proceed?" The visitor must say yes before the action runs. This is recommended for any financial or irreversible action.

Which Skills Are Destructive?

Destructive skills are flagged with a red "Destructive" badge in the Skill Controls panel. Common examples:

• Shopify/BigCommerce/WooCommerce: Cancel Order, Create Refund, Create Discount Code
• Monday.com: Delete Item, Archive Item
• NetSuite: Cancel Order, Create RMA
• ServiceNow: Close Incident, Approve Request
• Square: Cancel Order, Cancel Appointment, Create Refund

By default on Enterprise plans, destructive skills are enabled but we strongly recommend setting them to "Ask First" mode.

How Skill Controls Interact With Each Other

The three levels always work together — the most restrictive setting wins:

1. If your plan doesn't include write skills, no amount of integration or bot-level configuration will enable them

2. If a skill is disabled at the integration level, no bot on your account can use it

3. If a bot's AI node only permits certain skills, it won't use others even if they're enabled at the integration level

Think of it as: Plan → Integration → Bot. Each layer can only restrict, never expand beyond what the layer above allows.