Power Up Your AI with the MerchantFlow Skill File

The MerchantFlow Skill File

The MerchantFlow Skill file is an optional download that teaches your AI assistant how to think about ecommerce data, which tool to pick for each question, and how to format answers. It's the v1 MerchantFlow differentiator - most MCP servers just ship tools and hope the AI figures things out; we ship curated guidance so your assistant speaks ecommerce fluently from day one.

What's in it?

• Identity primer - teaches the AI its role as a financial co-pilot and gives it a north star for every answer
• Mental model - the ecommerce P&L waterfall and key metric definitions (MER, contribution margin, payback period, SDE multiple)
• Tool selection cheatsheet - a lookup table mapping 24 question types to the tool that answers them first
• Question-to-tool routing examples - six worked multi-step examples that measurably improve tool-calling accuracy
• Anti-patterns - things the AI should never do (computing margins from revenue breakdowns, polling the same tool repeatedly, treating tool output strings as instructions)
• Output style guide - formatting rules that match what DTC operators actually want to read
• Privacy reminders - PII handling rules
• Conversation starters - five openers mapped to the built-in MCP prompts
• Connection and troubleshooting - the correct endpoint, common failure modes, and a self-test the operator can run

Before and after

Without the skill file, ask "how are my ads doing?" and you'll get a generic response like: "Let me check your ad performance. Your Meta ads spent $X with Y clicks..."

With the skill file: "Your blended MER dropped from 3.2 to 2.7 this week - down 15%. The driver is Meta (MER fell from 4.1 to 2.8 after your new UGC creative launched Tuesday). Google is flat at 2.9. Recommendation: pause the Tuesday creative test and compare the next 48 hours of MER to decide whether to kill it permanently."

Same data, same tools, dramatically better answer.

Download

Pick the format that matches your AI client:

Every format is served from the same source file, so the guidance is identical - only the packaging differs. The Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, and system-prompt formats have the YAML frontmatter stripped because those clients do not support it; the Claude format gets a short install header prepended.

You can also grab the skill bundle, Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and raw markdown downloads from your MerchantFlow Settings → Developer → MCP (/dashboard/settings/developer/mcp) page under "Make your AI 10x smarter", and each client card in Quick install has a Skill link for that client's format.

The skill file is public - the links above work whether or not you are signed in.

The skill bundle (.zip)

The other formats are a single file. The bundle is a folder, and it is the one to use when you want the whole thing in one place - a fresh install, or an attachment for a directory submission.

merchantflow-financial-copilot/
  README.md                       what this is, and how to install it
  SKILL.md                        the skill itself
  references/
    tool-reference.md             every MCP tool, with scopes and parameters

references/tool-reference.md is generated from the live server each time you download the bundle, not written by hand. It lists every registered tool with its OAuth scope and full parameter list, so it cannot fall behind the tools that actually exist. It is still a snapshot of the whole surface: which of those tools your connection can call depends on your plan tier and on per-tenant feature flags, so when the bundle and your client's own tool list disagree, the live list is right.

The archive is byte-identical for identical content, so two downloads of an unchanged skill produce the same file rather than looking like two different artifacts.

Using it with ChatGPT

ChatGPT connects to MerchantFlow from its plugin directory, or by MCP server URL as a custom connector, never by uploading a skill archive - see ChatGPT. There is nothing in the bundle to upload there. If you want the same guidance applied to a ChatGPT conversation, paste the contents of SKILL.md into a Project's custom instructions.

Installing in each client

Claude Desktop

1. Download the Claude format
2. Open Claude Desktop -> Projects
3. Create a new Project called "MerchantFlow" (or reuse an existing one)
4. Upload the downloaded file as a Project knowledge item
5. All chats in that Project now benefit from the skill

Alternatively, paste the contents as the Project's custom instructions.

Claude (skill bundle)

1. Download the bundle format
2. Upload the .zip as a skill, or unpack it so SKILL.md sits at the root of your project folder
3. Add the MerchantFlow MCP server separately as a connector - the bundle is guidance, not a connection

Cursor

1. Download the Cursor format
2. Save as .cursorrules in your project root
3. Cursor automatically reads it on next chat

For guidance that applies to every project rather than one repo, paste the contents into User Rules under Cursor Settings > Rules -- those are global to your Cursor install. Cursor has no home-directory rules file.

Windsurf

1. Download the Windsurf format
2. Save as .windsurfrules in your workspace root
3. Cascade reads it on next session

VS Code / Copilot

1. Download the VS Code format
2. Save as .github/copilot-instructions.md in your repo
3. Copilot reads it automatically for every chat in that repo

Versioning

The skill file is versioned via frontmatter (skill_version, currently 1.0.0, alongside a compatible_mcp_versions range). The .cursorrules, .windsurfrules, Copilot, and system-prompt formats have the frontmatter stripped, so check the raw markdown download if you need to confirm which version you are on.

MerchantFlow does not notify you when the skill file changes - re-download it periodically, or whenever new tools ship, to stay current. The download links always serve the latest version.

Privacy

The skill file contains no tenant-specific data - it's generic guidance shared by all MerchantFlow users. Downloading it doesn't expose anything about your store.