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The Sims 4

Sims 4 Skill and Career Cheats

Skill cheats fail more often than any other kind in The Sims 4, and it is almost never a typo in the command. It is the skill name. The game stores several skills under internal IDs that do not match the label on the panel, and the cheat bar only accepts the internal one.

Every ID below is written exactly as the parser expects it. Search for the skill or career you want and copy the whole line.

Three IDs catch nearly everyone: Cooking is Major_HomestyleCooking, Mixology is Major_Bartending, and Fitness is Skill_Fitness rather than Major_Fitness. Those three are why a skill cheat "does nothing".

Skill and Career Cheat Browser

Search for a skill or career and copy the full line. Every internal ID is written the way the cheat bar expects it, including the three that do not match their in-game names.

Your platform

  1. 01Press Ctrl + Shift + C to open the cheat bar across the top of the screen.
  2. 02Type testingcheats true and press Enter. The bar replies "Cheats are enabled".
  3. 03Type any cheat below and press Enter.
  4. 04Press Esc to close the bar. Cheats stay enabled until you quit to the main menu.

Showing 38 of 38 · codes for PC

  • Enable cheats first

    Nothing in this table runs until cheats are on.

    Setup

  • Charisma

    Sets Charisma to level 10.

    Skill

  • Comedy

    Sets Comedy to level 10.

    Skill

  • Cooking

    Sets the base Cooking skill to level 10.

    Skill

    The ID is HomestyleCooking, not Cooking. Typing Major_Cooking returns an error.

  • Gourmet Cooking

    Sets Gourmet Cooking, the separate advanced skill, to level 10.

    Skill

  • Fishing

    Sets Fishing to level 10.

    Skill

  • Fitness

    Sets Fitness to level 10.

    Skill

    The one major skill that is not Major_. Fitness uses Skill_Fitness and nothing else works.

  • Gardening

    Sets Gardening to level 10.

    Skill

  • Guitar

    Sets Guitar to level 10.

    Skill

  • Handiness

    Sets Handiness to level 10.

    Skill

  • Logic

    Sets Logic to level 10.

    Skill

  • Mischief

    Sets Mischief to level 10.

    Skill

  • Mixology

    Sets Mixology to level 10.

    Skill

    Shown as Mixology in game, stored as Bartending in the code.

  • Painting

    Sets Painting to level 10.

    Skill

  • Photography

    Sets Photography to level 10.

    Skill

  • Piano

    Sets Piano to level 10.

    Skill

  • Programming

    Sets Programming to level 10.

    Skill

  • Rocket Science

    Sets Rocket Science to level 10.

    Skill

  • Video Gaming

    Sets Video Gaming to level 10.

    Skill

  • Violin

    Sets Violin to level 10.

    Skill

  • Wellness

    Sets Wellness to level 10. Added with Spa Day.

    Skill

  • Writing

    Sets Writing to level 10.

    Skill

  • DJ Mixing

    Sets DJ Mixing to level 10. Needs Get Together.

    Pack skill

  • Herbalism

    Sets Herbalism to level 10. Needs Outdoor Retreat.

    Pack skill

  • Flower Arranging

    Sets Flower Arranging to level 10. Needs Seasons.

    Pack skill

  • Promote — Business

    Moves the active Sim up one level of the Business career.

    Career

    Your Sim must already hold the job. Each use is one promotion, so run it repeatedly to reach the top.

  • Promote — Astronaut

    One promotion in the Astronaut career.

    Career

  • Promote — Athlete

    One promotion in the Athlete career. The ID is Athletic, not Athlete.

    Career

  • Promote — Criminal

    One promotion in the Criminal career.

    Career

  • Promote — Culinary

    One promotion in the Culinary career.

    Career

  • Promote — Entertainer

    One promotion in the Entertainer career.

    Career

  • Promote — Painter

    One promotion in the Painter career.

    Career

  • Promote — Secret Agent

    One promotion in the Secret Agent career. No space in the ID.

    Career

  • Promote — Tech Guru

    One promotion in the Tech Guru career. No space in the ID.

    Career

  • Promote — Writer

    One promotion in the Writer career.

    Career

    The odd one out: the Writer career ID is adult_writer, in lower case with an underscore.

  • Demote a career

    Takes the Sim down one level instead of up.

    Career

  • Quit a career

    Removes the named job from the active Sim entirely.

    Career

  • Finish aspiration milestone

    Completes the current stage of the active Sim’s aspiration.

    Career

How the Skill Cheat Is Built

The command is stats.set_skill_level, then the skill ID, then the level, each separated by a single space. Major skills run from 1 to 10. Minor and toddler skills stop at 5, and the toddler Potty skill stops at 3, so asking for level 10 on those does nothing useful.

The ID itself is where the trouble is. Most major skills are Major_ followed by the name with no space — Major_Charisma, Major_Handiness, Major_Logic. Then there are the three exceptions. Cooking is stored as Major_HomestyleCooking because Gourmet Cooking is a separate skill and the base one needed its own name. Mixology is stored as Major_Bartending, which was its name during development. And Fitness, for no reason anyone outside EA can explain, is Skill_Fitness — the only ten-level major skill that does not use the Major_ prefix.

Setting a skill downwards works exactly as well as setting it up. Passing 0 removes the skill entirely, which is the tidiest way to undo a cheat you did not mean to run.

Careers, Promotions and the Writer Problem

careers.promote takes a career ID and moves the Sim up exactly one rung. It is not a jump to the top — to reach the highest level of a ten-rung career you run it ten times, which is faster than it sounds because there is no confirmation between uses.

The Sim has to already hold the job. Running careers.promote on a career they have never joined returns an error rather than hiring them, so join the career normally first and then cheat the ladder.

Career IDs mostly drop the spaces from the visible name — Secret Agent becomes SecretAgent and Tech Guru becomes TechGuru. Athlete is stored as Athletic. The odd one out is Writer, which is adult_writer in lower case with an underscore, and is the career cheat people most often report as broken.

careers.demote and careers.remove_career take the same IDs, moving a Sim down a rung or removing the job entirely. Aspirations are separate: aspirations.complete_current_milestone finishes the active stage of whatever aspiration the Sim is working on, and can be run repeatedly to walk through the whole thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Sims 4 skill cheat?

stats.set_skill_level followed by the skill ID and the level, for example stats.set_skill_level Major_Logic 10. Cheats must be enabled with testingcheats true first.

Why does my skill cheat say the command is not recognised?

Almost always the skill ID. Cooking is Major_HomestyleCooking, Mixology is Major_Bartending and Fitness is Skill_Fitness — none of them match the name shown on the skill panel. Copy the full line from the table above.

How do I max a career in The Sims 4?

careers.promote followed by the career ID moves the Sim up one level. Run it once per level to reach the top. The Sim has to already hold that job for the cheat to do anything.

What is the cheat for the Writer career?

careers.promote adult_writer. It is the one career ID written in lower case with an underscore, which is why it is so often reported as not working.

Can I lower a skill instead of raising it?

Yes. The same command takes any level in range, and passing 0 removes the skill from the Sim completely.

Do skill cheats work on toddlers and children?

Yes, but with different IDs and lower caps. Toddler and minor skills top out at level 5, and the toddler Potty skill stops at 3, so asking for 10 will not give you more than the cap allows.

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