Notion Skills: create a first-week onboarding checklist

When a new colleague joins, many teams copy the previous person's onboarding checklist. Old meetings and the wrong system access can easily carry over. A shared skill in Notion lets the team reuse the instructions instead, building the checklist from the new role and current policies.

A skill is a Notion page containing reusable instructions for a specific task. Notion 3.7, announced on September 15, brings these instructions into a shared library. Here we use it for one job: drafting the new colleague's first working week.

Source: Notion 3.7: Agent skills for your whole team.

Gather the sources for week one

This suits a team lead whose staff procedures already live in Notion. Choose a current role description, equipment and system access policies, and the onboarding procedure. Check that those pages are still valid. Provide the start date and responsible manager separately, so details from a previous hire do not become the template's defaults.

Notion Agent is included in Business and Enterprise, subject to usage allowances. Free and Plus have a limited AI trial. Check access in your workspace before making this a shared routine.

Sources: Notion pricing plans. Get started with Notion Agent.

Create the instructions as a skill

Do these steps yourself in Notion. The menu names below follow the English documentation.

1. Open Library, choose the Skills tab, then + Add a skill. Create a page called First week.
2. Paste the template below into the page. Adapt it to your onboarding procedure.
3. If you see the Use automatically toggle, turn it off while testing. Run the skill manually until the output works.

Already have a page with equivalent instructions? Open its ••• menu and choose Use as a skill.

Source: Notion Help: create and manage skills.

Template to paste: First week

This is our suggested instruction, not a built-in feature that automatically orders equipment or creates accounts.

Task: Draft an onboarding checklist for the first working week.

Inputs: The role description, onboarding procedure, and equipment and system access policies the user has added. Also use the supplied start date and responsible manager.

If the role or start date is missing, ask for it before writing the checklist. If a source is missing or inaccessible, identify it. Do not invent a replacement.

Write in English. Split the checklist into Before the start, First day, and Rest of the week.

For each task, state what needs doing, the owner named in the sources, when it is due, and a source link. Write MISSING when an owner or deadline is not provided. Label suggested timings as suggestions.

Finish with Questions for the manager: conflicting instructions, missing information, and decisions needed. Do not reuse personal details from previous onboarding checklists.

Return the draft in chat. Do not edit source pages, send messages, create accounts, or book meetings.

Run it for one role, then share the skill

Open Notion Agent and add the source pages with @. Type / in the agent chat, choose First week, add the role, start date, and responsible manager, then send. The agent has the same permissions as you; access to the skill does not automatically grant access to the sources.

Sources: Notion Help: run a skill. Notion Agent: context and permissions.

Have the manager check that each task fits the role and that the sources support the proposed access. Then try the same skill for a different role. The lists should differ where the work differs without losing the shared onboarding steps. Also try leaving out the start date: the instruction asks the agent to request it, but you need to check that it does.

Share the skill page with a colleague. They can find shared skills under Library > Discover and choose Enable for me. Give edit access to the person who maintains the procedure: editing the shared page changes the instructions for everyone using it.

Source: Notion Help: sharing and permissions for skills.

Save the reviewed onboarding checklist separately. For the next hire, reuse the skill with new inputs and current sources rather than copying the previous colleague's working week.