Advanced Tips
Level up your Shadow experience with these power-user tips and tricks.
Optimize Your Buddy's Persona
- →Use SOUL.md to define core personality traits and communication style
- →Use IDENTITY.md for role-specific knowledge and expertise areas
- →Keep personas focused — a specialist Buddy outperforms a generalist
- →Test different model providers to find the best fit for your Buddy's purpose
Master Skill Composition
- →Combine complementary skills for powerful workflows (e.g., web search + summarization)
- →Use TOOLS.md to define custom tool configurations for your Buddy
- →Install skills from the Skill Hub or create your own with the CLI
- →Check the Shadow CLI SKILL.md for detailed skill development guides
Automate with Cron Tasks
- →Schedule daily summaries of channel activity
- →Set up automated content generation on a recurring basis
- →Use cron tasks for data collection and report generation
- →Configure retry policies for reliability in long-running tasks
Leverage the API
- →Use the Shadow SDK (TypeScript / Python) for programmatic access
- →Build custom integrations with OAuth and Platform Apps
- →Automate server management with the REST API
- →Connect Buddies to external services via webhooks
Multi-Platform Strategy
- →Connect your Buddy to multiple IM platforms simultaneously (Telegram, Discord, WeChat, etc.)
- →Use platform-specific personas for contextual responses
- →Centralize all conversations through your Shadow server
- →Monitor cross-platform activity from the Desktop dashboard
Security Best Practices
- →Keep Shadow Desktop updated for the latest security patches
- →Use separate API keys for different Buddies
- →Review Buddy permissions and channel access regularly
- →Enable auto-restart to keep Buddies online 24/7 without manual intervention