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Academy module

Joule Studio: Custom Joule Skills

Joule custom skill anatomy: prompt to definition, inputs, grounded backend, response — architecture diagram for Joule Studio: Custom Joule Skills, Analytics Legends Academy module M052

As of 2026-10-10

Edited by , sole editor and publication director — 27 years in the SAP ecosystem. How these pages are produced, and where automation is used.

A Joule skill executes one predefined operation — look up, list, create, change status — with typed inputs and outputs, a deterministic flow and a message back to the user. In Joule Studio (classic edition, in SAP Build) you build it in the skill builder: Trigger step with Skill Inputs and Outputs, Action steps calling a published SAP Build action project over a destination, Condition and Formula editors, confirmation steps for create/update/delete, Send Message cards, optional process calls; you test at design time and in users' languages, then deploy from a standalone to a shared environment. SAP names five use-case patterns (navigation, data access, system transactions, workflow execution, decision assistance). Skills are cheap and predictable and become the tools agents call; the senior discipline is the catalogue — one intent per skill, a shared vocabulary, cross-skill routing tests, backend authorisation, and a register per skill.

What you will learn

  • Classify a requirement against SAP's five skill use-case patterns and decide skill, skill-plus-process or agent
  • Build a Joule skill in the skill builder: Trigger with Skill Inputs/Outputs, Action on a published action project, conditions, confirmation and Send Message
  • Test a skill at design time with representative phrasings, non-triggers, invalid inputs, authorisation cases and other languages, then deploy standalone before shared
  • Design and govern a skill catalogue: one intent per skill, vocabulary register, cross-skill routing tests, identity per destination and a register per skill

Module overview

A Joule skill is the smallest unit of custom behaviour you can add to Joule: one predefined operation, with typed inputs and outputs, a deterministic flow and a message back to the user. Skills are unglamorous next to agents, and that is their strength. They are cheap to run, predictable, testable and easy to audit, and they become the tools your agents call. This module teaches you to design, build, test and deploy skills in Joule Studio (classic edition, inside SAP Build), and to run a skill catalogue the way a senior consultant does on a client project. It replaces an earlier version of this module that described skills with an invented definition format; everything below follows SAP Help, SAP tutorials and SAP's architecture centre.

Prerequisites

  • Hands-on experience with SAP BTP destinations and SAP Build
  • Access to Joule Studio, classic edition, with environments in the Control Tower
  • Review core concepts first: C161, C113, C024

Outcomes

  • Build a working read skill and a confirmed write skill on a published SAP Build action project.
  • Write skill descriptions and input descriptions that route correctly and let Joule ask for missing values.
  • Run and document a test pack including non-triggers, authorisation and cross-skill routing.
  • Hand over a catalogue register that a successor team and a security review can use without a meeting.

Full module available to members. The full module adds: the decision framework · the end-to-end scenario walkthrough · the KPI scorecard · the anti-patterns · the code blocks · the knowledge check · the diagrams.

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