--- name: vellum-self-knowledge description: Answer questions about Vellum's architecture, configuration, and hosting from live sources of truth compatibility: "Designed for Vellum personal assistants" metadata: emoji: "🪞" vellum: category: "system" display-name: "Vellum Self-Knowledge" activation-hints: - "what model the assistant is running on" - "how Vellum works or its architecture" - "its current configuration or settings" - "what it can do, or what skills/tools are available" - "whether a service is connected, and in which sense" - "how to self-host a Vellum assistant" - "how to configure your own model API key" avoid-when: - "changing 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` | | Which providers exist, and in which sense | `assistant oauth providers list --json` | | Whether one is actually connected | `assistant oauth status ` | | Channel delivery health | `assistant channels list` | | 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 --help` to discover more. "Is X connected?" has two answers and a service can have either, both, or neither. It takes both commands: the providers list is a catalog and says nothing about whether anything is connected, so use it to find which provider keys belong to X, then check each with `oauth status`. Each provider in that list carries its sense: `actsAs` in the CLI's JSON, `acts_as` over HTTP. `user` means the assistant can act as the person who authorized it, `assistant` means a bot people reach the assistant through. Report the sense found rather than a bare yes. Do not infer the sense from the provider key. `slack` and `discord` name the user integration while their bots are `slack_channel` and `discord_channel`, yet `telegram` is itself the bot. Some services offer both from one authorize URL, so having done one is not evidence of the other, and people often cannot recall which they did. `channels list` reports delivery health for channels that have a readiness probe, which is not all of them. It answers whether a channel is working, not whether something is connected. ### 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/` | 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): 1. Get the current version: `assistant --version` 2. The open source repo is at `https://github.com/vellum-ai/vellum-assistant` 3. The release for version X is at `https://github.com/vellum-ai/vellum-assistant/releases/tag/vX.Y.Z` 4. Check out the matching tag locally: `cd /workspace/vellum-assistant && git fetch --tags && git checkout v` 5. Key source locations: - `assistant/` — Runtime (conversation loop, tool dispatch, memory, scheduling) - `gateway/` — Ingress boundary (webhooks, Telegram, Twilio, reverse proxy) - `clients/` — Native macOS client - `skills/` — Bundled skill definitions - `ARCHITECTURE.md` — Cross-system index - `assistant/ARCHITECTURE.md` — Runtime internals - `gateway/ARCHITECTURE.md` — Gateway internals - `assistant/docs/architecture/` — Detailed architecture docs (security, memory, etc.) 6. Read the relevant source files to answer the question. ### Resolution Order 1. **CLI first** — if the question is about current state, config, or capabilities, the CLI has it. 2. **Docs second** — if the question is conceptual ("what is X", "how does Y work"), fetch the docs page. 3. **Source code last** — only for deep implementation questions that the docs don't cover.