About Chef 360 Platform skills

A skill is an agent that allows you to perform actions on a node for a specific outcome. A skill can either be a canister-based skill or a non-canister-based skill. Skills can be Chef-owned (for example, Chef Infra, Chef Inspec, or Chef Courier) or user-created custom skills that Chef 360 Platform can register and manage.

Default skills

Chef 360 Platform installs the following default skills on a node during enrollment:

Chef Infra Client interpreter skill
Courier Runner skill
Gohai skill
InSpec interpreter skill
Restart interpreter skill
Shell interpreter skill

Skill types

canister skill: A Habitat package that’s installed independently and in parallel with other canisters. The Node Management agent manages these packages through a supervisor. Canisters don’t run as services and must be invoked by another skill or service. For example, the Courier Runner skill invokes the Infra Client canister skill. You can install multiple versions of a canister skill.
canister service skill: A Habitat package that’s installed as a Habitat service and managed by the Node Management Client through a supervisor. For example, you can install the Courier Runner as a service skill that invokes canister skills such as Chef Infra Client or Chef InSpec. A service skill supports only one version running on a node.
non-canister skill: A skill that isn’t a Habitat package. For example, Chef Infra Client or Chef InSpec Omnibus skills, or remote management capabilities.
omnibus skill: An Omnibus package of an agent. For example, Chef Infra Client 18 installed on your nodes before you adopted Chef 360 Platform.

Node Management agent

The Node Management agent is a skill that oversees and manages other skills on a node.

It performs the following tasks:

manages credentials on nodes
maintains the desired state of skills on nodes as specified in the skill assembly
applies skill settings based on global default settings or override settings
reports the node’s status
manages node attributes

How Chef 360 Platform installs skills

When Chef 360 Platform enrolls a node into a cohort, it installs the Node Management agent on that node. The agent then installs skills defined in the skill assembly.

To add skills to a node:

Define your skills
Create override settings for the skills
Group the skills into a skill assembly
Assign the skill assembly and override settings to a node cohort