> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.eyepop.ai/developer-documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.eyepop.ai/developer-documentation/platform/abilities.md).

# Abilities

A single preconfigured vision task that returns structured output

An **Ability** is a preconfigured AI task — detect objects, classify a scene, extract fields from a document, understand an event in video — that takes media and returns structured output. Abilities let you add visual intelligence without training or deploying your own models.

Browse ready-made ones, with example output, in the [Abilities Hub](https://eyepop.ai/abilities). Create your own with a prompt in the [dashboard](https://dashboard.eyepop.ai), or with `eyepop create ability` from the CLI section in this site's navigation. Publishing an ability gives it an alias under your namespace, `<your-namespace>.<task>.<name>:latest`, and that alias is how the CLI, a Pop, and a deployment reference it.

Chain abilities together into a pipeline with a [Pop](/developer-documentation/platform/pop.md).

### Anatomy of an Ability

An Ability is a small set of parameters that control how media is analyzed, how much compute it uses, and how often frames are sampled.

| Field                    | Description                                                                                                                            |
| ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `name`                   | Unique identifier used in API calls, e.g. `<your-namespace>.structured-ocr.read-drivers-license`.                                      |
| `description`            | What the Ability does. Also what the Prompt Creation Agent reads to generate or refine prompts, so make it specific and task-oriented. |
| `config.image_size`      | Resolution media is resized to before inference. The single biggest lever on cost and speed.                                           |
| `text_prompt`            | The instruction given to the vision-language model (`--prompt` on the CLI). Define the task and restrict the possible outputs.         |
| `worker_release`         | The backing vision-language model, currently the shared default `qwen3-instruct`. Not selectable when you create an Ability.           |
| `transform_into.classes` | The fixed set of output labels raw model output is mapped into (`--class` on the CLI).                                                 |
| `config.fps`             | Frames per second sampled from video and livestreams.                                                                                  |

`image_size` and `fps` are part of the Ability's `config` object; the other fields sit at the top level.

A useful mental model: **Ability = model + prompt + media sampling**. The model sets reasoning capability, the prompt defines the task, and `fps` plus `image_size` control performance and compute.

#### A good prompt

```
Determine whether a person in the frame is wearing a safety helmet.
Return exactly one label from: ["helmet", "no_helmet"].
```

It names the task and constrains the output. Avoid open-ended prompts like `Analyze the image` — they produce inconsistent labels, verbose text, and higher cost.

#### Typical settings

| Use case              | `image_size` | `fps` |
| --------------------- | ------------ | ----- |
| Object detection      | 512–640      | —     |
| Find event in video   | 512–640      | 2–5   |
| Sports analytics      | 512–640      | 5–10  |
| Industrial monitoring | 512–640      | 1–3   |
| Document analysis     | 768–1024     | —     |

Lower `image_size` and `fps` reduce compute while still capturing most events.

### Cost

Abilities consume [Compute Units](/developer-documentation/pricing.md) based on the model, the `image_size` you set, and — for video — the frame rate. See [Pricing](/developer-documentation/pricing.md) for plans and rates.

### Ability Prompt Creation Agent

Vision models are sensitive to how instructions are written; small wording changes shift accuracy, consistency, and cost. The Prompt Creation Agent takes the task you want to perform and generates a prompt that follows tested patterns, avoiding inconsistent classifications, verbose output, hallucinations, and unpredictable formatting.

*Coming soon to the dashboard.*

### Next steps

* [Models](/developer-documentation/platform/models.md) — the pretrained catalog you can run today, and how custom models differ
* [Pops](/developer-documentation/platform/pop.md) — chain abilities into a pipeline
* [Train Your Own Model](/developer-documentation/train-your-own-model.md) — build an ability from your own data