WorkBuddy Ultimate Beginner’s Tutorial (Finale)

Hello everyone, I’m Xiaohui, a programmer.

Yesterday I published the first part of the “WorkBuddy Ultimate Beginner’s Tutorial,” which covered basic concepts, installation methods, and simple applications.

I’ve included the link to that article at the end of this post.

Now, let’s continue where we left off and dive into WorkBuddy’s advanced usage, practical case studies, and advice for beginners.

8. Skills: Give AI a Professional Operations Manual

The “professional operations manual” here is what everyone often calls a Skill. Experts decide “who does the work,” while skills decide “how to do it more professionally.”

A skill is a structured operations manual that tells AI what process to follow, what details to pay attention to, and what format to output when handling a specific task. WorkBuddy’s SkillHub marketplace already has over 70,000 community skills, with more than 30 million cumulative downloads.

Browse and Install: Click “Skills” on the left to enter SkillHub, browse by category, or search directly. Search for “Excel” and you’ll see dozens of related skills for data processing, chart generation, formula auditing, and formatting. Pick the one you need and install it with one click.

Invoke in Tasks: After installation, trigger it in the input box with /skillname. For example, after installing the xlsx skill:

PS: /xlsx Read the sales data.xlsx on the desktop, summarize by month, generate a bar chart, and output to a new Excel file.

The AI will execute according to the workflow defined by the xlsx skill, which is far more reliable than just asking it to “process Excel.”

Create Your Own Skill: If you find yourself repeating the same operation more than 3 times, it’s time to turn it into a skill. Three creation methods are supported: no-code graphical interface, import YAML templates, and reverse generation from instructions (after repeating similar operations 3 times, the AI will automatically prompt “Would you like to save this as a skill?”).

Quick start for beginners: Install 5 commonly used skills (xlsx, pptx, docx, pdf, frontend-design), invoke them a few times in tasks, feel the difference in output with and without skills, and then consider creating your own.

Skill vs Expert vs Expert Group

• Skill is capability
• Expert is capability + experience
• Expert Group is multiple experts + collaboration workflow

9. Automation: Set It Once, Work Happens Automatically

Automation is essentially a timed trigger + task orchestration. You set what to do and when, and it executes automatically.

Creation Method: The simplest way is to just talk naturally.

• “Generate my daily work report every day at 18:00”
• “Summarize this week’s data every Sunday at 22:00 and generate a draft weekly report”
• “Fetch AI industry news every morning at 9:00 and generate a morning briefing”

The AI will automatically recognize the time, frequency, and task content, and create a scheduled task in the background.

You can also fill it in manually in the “Automation” panel: task name, prompt (what to do), execution frequency and time, and whether to push to WeCom or WeChat.

There are nine ready-to-use templates by default, which you can configure as needed.

Practical pitfalls:

• If you close the WorkBuddy client, scheduled tasks will not trigger. It won’t work silently in the background. Closing the laptop lid or putting it to sleep also stops execution.
• File paths must use absolute paths (D:/WorkReports/), not relative paths.
• When creating a new automation task, manually test it once to confirm the output meets expectations before enabling the schedule. Setting it directly on a timer will likely produce something you don’t want.
• Automation tasks themselves consume very few credits — simple operations cost 1 to 2 credits.

It’s recommended to get comfortable with the other 6 modules before touching automation. If you jump in too early, you’ll probably end up with unusable outputs due to imprecise instructions.

10. Practical Case: Competitor Monitoring

This case combines the task bar, permissions mode, skills, and automation.

Background: I was tracking a competitor’s product updates and pricing changes. Previously, I had to manually check their website, which was tedious and often missed updates.

Step 1: Run it manually

Create a new task, select Plan mode, and enter the following Prompt:

Plan mode will first generate an execution plan for you to confirm. During the first execution, watch carefully to see if the Agent’s actions match your expectations. If there are discrepancies, adjust the Prompt and try again.

I could have skipped Plan mode here because I had already written the planning step into my memory by default.

During testing, the key point is to extract node data from the response. You can copy and paste the response page directly to it and let it analyze on its own.

Step 2: Convert to scheduled task

Once it runs correctly manually and the results are satisfactory, package the entire process into a Skill, and then schedule that Skill to run daily. With WeChat push enabled, your phone will ding when it’s done.

I’ve attached my packaged skill for your reference:

Link: https://pan.quark.cn/s/c9e7476977c0 Extraction code: zh5s

Step 3: Verification

The next day, check if it executed on time. If it didn’t, the computer was probably in sleep mode. If it executed but the results were wrong, check the execution logs in the task history and adjust the Prompt.

Once this flow is working, what used to take half an hour per week now costs nothing.

11. Practical Case: Contract Risk Review

A high-frequency necessity in office scenarios. When you receive a contract and need to quickly assess the pitfalls, previously reading through a 40-page PDF line by line would take at least two hours.

Step 1: Load the contract review expert and skills

Find a contract management expert from the Expert Square, and install contract review skills from SkillHub. WorkBuddy’s built-in contract risk clause library covers common issues like unequal liability for breach, unclear intellectual property ownership, vague payment terms, overly broad confidentiality clauses, and unfavorable jurisdiction.

Step 2: Upload the contract and perform the review

Enter the following in the chat box:

Then drag and drop the contract PDF into the chat box to upload. The Agent will output in a structured format, marking each risk point with the specific page number and clause content, along with suggested revised wording.

Step 3: Generate a review report

Once you confirm the review results are correct, add a follow-up:

Organize the review results into a formal contract review report, including a risk summary, detailed analysis, and revision suggestions, and save as PDF.

The structured report generated by the Agent can be sent directly to legal or replied to the other party.

Effectiveness Evaluation: For standard service contracts, sales contracts, and other common templates, the review quality is very high, catching over 90% of common risk points. For highly customized complex contracts (e.g., investment and financing agreements), it can only serve as a reference for legal professionals, not replace a lawyer. At this level of granularity, it has far exceeded expectations.

12. Final Thoughts

After three weeks of using WorkBuddy, I’ve summarized a few core principles:

1. Run it manually first, then automate. Don’t jump straight into creating scheduled tasks. First, manually run the process in a conversation to confirm the Prompt and flow are correct and that the AI understands what you want. Then convert it to automation. Skip this step, and you’ll likely wake up to a bunch of incomprehensible outputs.

2. Write specific Prompts, not requirement documents. AI is not a product manager; it doesn’t need user stories. What you need to write is “Open webpage → Click button → Extract table → Save as CSV.” Clearly written operation steps are ten times more reliable than “Help me analyze the competition.”

3. Don’t trust AI when it says “done.” Let it self-check. Verify key parameters (size, format, quantity) yourself. AI might say “Generated a 3:4 image,” but it’s actually a 1:1 square.

4. Clean up memory regularly. Keep it under 20 entries. Review MEMORY.md once a week and delete outdated information.

5. Start new conversations for important tasks. The longer the context, the more it costs. The 20th round of dialogue may consume 5 to 10 times the credits of the first round.

WorkBuddy is not an out-of-the-box, worry-free tool. Used well, it’s a digital employee; used poorly, it’s a credit burner. Master the content of today’s tutorial, avoid these pitfalls, and you’ll be able to make AI truly work for you.

That’s all for the WorkBuddy beginner’s tutorial. Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, and don’t forget to like, bookmark, and share.

Also, follow me @XiaohuiAI666 to learn more useful AI and side-hustle tips.

If you haven’t seen the first part of the “WorkBuddy Ultimate Beginner’s Tutorial,” click the link below to read it:

https://x.com/XiaohuiAI666/status/2071830585216291050