The Numenera focus Carries a Quiver grants an enabler called Trained Archer, which says (core rulebook, pg.54):
You are trained in using bows.
What does this apply to? The normal usage of a bow is an attack, but the phrasing here suggests a non-attack task. Am I missing something?
You've not missed anything. In Numenera, making an attack is considered a task just like any other, and being trained in a skill - in this case, using a bow - might reduce the difficulty of the attack. As on pg.91, emphasis mine:
In the simplest kind of attack, [...] the player rolls and compares his result against the opponent's target number. [...] Just as with any kind of task, the GM might modify the difficulty based on the situation, and the player might have a bonus to the roll or might try to lower the difficulty using skills, assets, or effort.
There's no reason to believe this is meant to refer to some non-attack way of using a bow; the rules explicitly call out that skills can be applicable to attacks, and that's the natural reading of being skilled at using a bow.
