Loading…
Personalizing Genie Code with instructions, skills, memory, and MCP
Samantha Banchik, Gal Oshri, Romain Rigaux, Will Tipton, Chloe Chan
- Source
- Databricks
- Published
- Added to Yomu
Summary
Genie Code adds personalization through persistent instructions, task-specific Agent Skills, shared repository conventions, and MCP servers. Instructions apply across every agent-mode session, while AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md files can be discovered automatically for team conventions. Skills are markdown-based packages with names, descriptions, guidance, reusable code, or scripts, scoped to workflows and available personally or through Workspace/.assistant/skills/. MCP servers expose external tools, data, and workflows from managed services, Unity Catalog-connected servers, or Databricks Apps, with workspace admin controls and permission-based user selection. Managed OAuth flows for Google Drive, SharePoint, and GitHub are currently in beta, while the MCP marketplace and Genie Code settings support server discovery and setup.
Context
Teams need Genie Code to reflect coding standards, internal workflows, shared tools, and the context behind past decisions. Global instructions are useful for universal preferences, but task-specific context requires a more targeted mechanism, while external context may already reside in documentation systems, internal tools, and services.
Approach / What changed
Use persistent custom instructions for universal preferences; AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md for automatically discovered repository conventions; markdown-based personal or workspace Agent Skills for focused workflows; and approved MCP servers for governed access to external tools, data, and workflows. Workspace administrators control available servers and user permissions, with managed OAuth available in beta for selected services.
Takeaways
- Agent Skills can include workflow guidance, reusable code, and executable scripts, with names and descriptions used to determine when a skill is relevant.
- Workspace skills stored in Workspace/.assistant/skills/ are available to everyone in the workspace and can standardize workflows such as incident response or data quality checks.
- MCP servers can be managed Databricks services, Unity Catalog-connected external servers, or custom servers hosted on Databricks Apps; users access approved servers they have permission to use.