| name | sync-skills |
| description | Fetch skills from projects on the current system, genericize them, and add to the claude-skills repository. Use when user says "sync skills", "fetch skills", "import skills from projects", or wants to pull skills from their local projects into this public repo. |
Sync Skills from Local Projects
Overview
This skill scans projects on the current system for Claude Code skills (.claude/skills/ directories), identifies new or updated skills, genericizes them by stripping project-specific content, and adds them to this repository.
Workflow
Step 1: Identify the Claude Skills Repo
The target repo is the claude-skills project. Confirm its location - it should be the current working directory or specified by the user.
Step 2: Scan for Skills
Search for skills across local projects:
Find all directories matching: <projects-root>/*/.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md
Default projects root: [your projects root] (e.g. ~/Documents/Projects/). The user may override this with a different path.
For each found skill, collect:
- Skill name (directory name)
- Source project name
- SKILL.md content
- Any files in
references/, assets/, scripts/ subdirectories
Step 3: Deduplicate
Compare found skills against skills already in skills/by-role/ and skills/shared/ directories of this repo:
- New skill: not present in repo - proceed to genericize
- Updated skill: present but source has newer/different content - show diff, ask user whether to update
- Identical: skip silently
Step 4: Determine the Role
For each new skill, determine which role folder it belongs in:
Valid roles: pm, engineer, qa, designer, content-creator, devops, shared, leadership, program-delivery-manager, customer-success, recruiter, consultant, sales, marketing, founder, data-scientist, data-engineer, security
If the role is unclear, ask the user before proceeding.
Step 5: Genericize
For each new or updated skill, apply these transformations:
Replace personal references:
- Author names, handles, usernames -> remove or replace with
[your name]
- Newsletter/blog names ->
[your newsletter]
- Specific domains (e.g.,
name.substack.com) -> [your-domain]
- Niche or topic tied to the author ->
[your niche] or [your topic]
- Company names ->
[your company]
- Team names ->
[your team]
- Client names ->
[your client]
- Project-specific program names ->
[your program]
Remove project-specific content:
- File paths referencing the source project
- References to other project-specific skills, configs, or workflows
- Environment variables specific to the source project
- API keys, tokens, or credentials (should never exist, but check)
Preserve:
- The skill's core logic, frameworks, and checklists
- Generic examples and templates
- Anti-patterns and quality criteria
- References to general tools or platforms (LinkedIn, Substack, etc.)
- The book or methodology the skill is grounded in
Verify:
- YAML frontmatter has
name and description fields
- Description has multiple trigger phrases and is pushy
- Body is under 500 lines
- No personal/project-specific content remains
- Skill is self-contained (no broken references to removed content)
Step 6: Add to Repo
For each genericized skill, use init_skill.py to scaffold and register in skills.json:
python3 scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --role <role> --description "<one-liner>" --tags "<tag1,tag2>"
This creates skills/by-role/<role>/<skill-name>/SKILL.md and adds the entry to skills.json automatically.
Then overwrite the scaffolded SKILL.md with the genericized content.
Do not manually edit install.sh - it reads from skills.json. The registry is the source of truth.
Step 7: Validate
python3 scripts/validate_skill.py
All skills must pass before committing.
Step 8: Update README
Add a row to the correct role table in README.md:
| `skill-name` | What it does | Book/methodology source |
Step 9: Report and Commit
Output a summary:
- Skills added (with source project and role assigned)
- Skills updated (with what changed)
- Skills skipped (already identical)
- Skills needing manual review (couldn't fully genericize)
Commit with a clear message:
git add skills/by-role/<role>/<skill-name>/ skills.json README.md
git commit -m "sync <skill-name> from [source project]"
Anti-Patterns
Don't blindly copy. Always read the source skill first. Some skills are deeply project-specific and can't be genericized.
Don't merge skills. If two projects have different versions of the same skill, ask the user which to keep.
Don't strip too much. The goal is to remove personal references, not gut the content. Frameworks, examples, and checklists should survive intact.
Don't forget supporting files. Check for references/, assets/, scripts/ subdirectories and copy them too.
Don't edit install.sh directly. Use init_skill.py to register skills. install.sh reads from skills.json - the hardcoded array no longer exists.
Quality Checklist
Before completing sync:
