Stop guessing which SAP AI technology to use. This skill guides you from business problem to production-ready architecture — in one conversation.
SAP's AI portfolio is vast and fast-moving: RPT-1, Joule, Generative AI Hub, AI Agents, Document AI, HANA PAL/APL, Joule Studio, Agent Fabric... Choosing wrong costs months. This skill helps you choose right, first time.
Based on the official SAP AI Golden Path — SAP's recommended decision framework for AI on BTP.
You describe your use case. The skill walks you through a structured decision framework and tells you:
- Whether AI is even the right approach (or whether process optimization would do the job)
- Which SAP AI technology fits your specific combination of data, workflow, and agency needs
- How to implement it — architecture patterns, key services, gotchas, and links to official resources
You have a new AI use case. You open the SAP Architecture Center. An hour later you have twelve browser tabs open, three plausible technology options, and no clear answer on which one fits — or what the gotchas are before you commit.
That's the problem this skill solves.
"We want a conversational AI that understands employee leave requests in natural language, autonomously gathers the missing information, checks entitlements in real time, and drives the approval workflow in S/4HANA end to end."
Without the skill: conversational + backend integration sounds like an agent. Weeks of Agent Fabric setup later, the team realizes the workflow has fixed steps and no on-the-fly reasoning — a Joule Skill would have done the job in days.
With the skill: one question cuts through it — what's the agency level? Fixed steps, no on-the-fly decisions → low agency → Joule Skill, not an agent. Build it in Joule Studio, connect via OData destination, done.
The fastest way to use this skill: just upload the files directly into your chat.
- Upload
SKILL.md(and optionally the relevantreferences/*.mdfiles for deeper questions) - Describe your use case — the skill takes it from there
No installation, no CLI, no IDE needed.
One-liner install:
npx skills add jansellmann/sap-ai-pathfinderClone or copy into the skills directory for your tool:
| Tool | Directory |
|---|---|
| Claude Code | .claude/skills/sap-ai-pathfinder/ |
| OpenAI Codex | .agents/skills/sap-ai-pathfinder/ |
| VS Code Copilot | .agents/skills/sap-ai-pathfinder/ |
| Roo Code | .roo/skills/sap-ai-pathfinder/ |
| Category | Technologies |
|---|---|
| Classic ML | SAP-RPT-1, HANA Cloud PAL/APL, Custom ML on AI Core |
| GenAI Applications | Generative AI Hub, Orchestration Service, SAP AI SDK, CAP LLM Plugin, RAG with HANA Vector Engine |
| Conversational AI | Joule Skills, Joule Studio |
| AI Agents | Agent Fabric, Dev IDE (Pro-code), Vibe (Prompt-driven), Joule Functions/Agents |
| Document Processing | SAP Document AI |
| Interoperability | A2A Protocol, MCP |
flowchart TD
A([Business problem]) --> B{Is AI\nactually needed?}
B -- No --> C[Process optimization /\ntraditional automation]
B -- Yes --> D{What does\nthe task require?}
D -- Predict / classify\nno content generation --> E{Is data\ntabular / relational?}
E -- No --> H[Custom ML\non SAP AI Core]
E -- Yes --> F{Classification or\nregression on\na single table?}
F -- Yes --> RPT[SAP RPT-1]
F -- No --> H
RPT -- RPT-1 cannot meet\noperational constraints --> G[HANA Cloud\nPAL / APL]
D -- Generate / reason\ncontent or conversation --> I{Readiness\ngate passed?}
I -- No --> J[Gather data, define\nmetrics, secure sponsorship]
I -- Yes --> K{Agency level?}
K -- Low / no agency\nsingle or fixed steps --> L{Conversational\ninterface needed?}
L -- Yes --> M[Joule Skill]
L -- No --> O[Embedded AI\nGenAI application]
O -- Special case: document\ninput + data extraction --> N[SAP Document AI]
K -- Medium / high agency\non-the-fly decisions --> P{Broad scope AND\nconversational?}
P -- Yes --> Q[Joule Functions / Agents\nAgentic Orchestration]
P -- No: process agent\nor non-conversational --> R{Team preference?}
R -- Max control / IDE --> S[Dev IDE\nPro-code agent]
R -- Lower barrier --> T[Vibe\nPrompt-driven agent]
style C fill:#f5f5f5,stroke:#ccc,color:#555
style J fill:#f5f5f5,stroke:#ccc,color:#555
style RPT fill:#e6f4ea,stroke:#34a853,color:#1a5c2e
style G fill:#e6f4ea,stroke:#34a853,color:#1a5c2e
style H fill:#e6f4ea,stroke:#34a853,color:#1a5c2e
style M fill:#e8f0fe,stroke:#4285f4,color:#1a3c8f
style N fill:#e8f0fe,stroke:#4285f4,color:#1a3c8f
style O fill:#e8f0fe,stroke:#4285f4,color:#1a3c8f
style Q fill:#fce8b2,stroke:#f9ab00,color:#7a4f00
style S fill:#fce8b2,stroke:#f9ab00,color:#7a4f00
style T fill:#fce8b2,stroke:#f9ab00,color:#7a4f00
sap-ai-pathfinder/
├── SKILL.md # Decision framework + implementation pointers (start here)
└── references/
├── genai-applications.md # GenAI app architecture, RAG, CAP, Orchestration Service
├── ai-agents.md # Low-code and pro-code agents, A2A/MCP, Joule integration
├── joule-skills.md # Joule Skill development, best practices, tutorials
├── classic-ml.md # RPT-1, HANA PAL/APL, Custom ML on AI Core
└── document-ai.md # SAP Document AI, PaaS vs SaaS, API access
SAP's AI portfolio evolves quickly. Known roadmap items to verify before committing:
| Item | Status to check |
|---|---|
| RPT-1 explainability | Targeted H2 2026 — verify if released |
| Agent Gateway GA | Targeted Q4 2026 — verify current availability |
| RPT-1.5 | Targeted H2 2026 — verify if available |
| Model availability | Monitor SAP Note 3437766 |
Found something outdated? Missing a technology? PRs welcome.
- Gotchas and limitations are especially valuable — if you hit a wall that isn't documented here, please add it
- Keep references lean — link to official SAP docs rather than duplicating them
- One PR per topic — easier to review and merge
This is an unofficial community resource, not an official SAP publication. For authoritative guidance, refer to the SAP Help Portal and the SAP Architecture Center.
Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.
Based on SAP Architecture Center, Copyright 2025 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company and architecture-center contributors, licensed under Apache-2.0. Packaged for Agent Skills format by Jan Sellmann.