Customizing the gateway operating guide

The bundled gateway-usage skill is the agent’s operating manual for ChannelGate. It explains supported chat output, tool identities, questions, files, approvals, memory, and administration. The gateway delivers the resolved guide to channel folders on subsequent requests.

Inspect the effective guide

Ask the agent to list guide files and identify customized overrides, then read the relevant file. get_gateway_guide without a file returns the inventory; a file such as references/sharing-files.md returns its active content.

Show the current gateway guide's file list, then read the sharing-files reference and say whether it is customized.

The shipped defaults remain in the repository. Administrators can overlay individual files without editing those defaults. Unmodified files continue following the bundled version when the gateway is updated.

Customize one reference

An administrator supplies the complete new Markdown with update_gateway_guide. The default target is SKILL.md; a named references/<name>.md can update or introduce a reference. Changes propagate to every conversation on the next message.

Keep the guide general: how the agent should operate on supported chat surfaces. Customer facts belong in memory; local behavioral rules belong in channel instructions; specialized procedures belong in skills.

Restore the baseline

reset_gateway_guide with a file removes that override. With no file it removes all guide customizations and restores the shipped baseline. Administrator changes follow the gateway’s administration/approval policy.

Platform-specific overlays adjust the general guide to Slack, Teams, or Google Chat capabilities; unavailable platform functions are removed at materialization. A common rule cannot make an unsupported rich artifact render on a platform.