| name | skills-manager-cli |
| description | Drive the Skills Manager CLI (`skm`) to initialize the hub, adopt unmanaged skills, list/enable/disable skills per AI tool, and doctor/fix symlink sync. Use whenever the user or an agent needs to manage skills from a terminal, SSH session, CI job, or headless machine; when a skill is missing in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode, or any other supported tool; when asked to run skm / Skills Manager CLI; or when setting up Skills Manager without the GUI. Do not use for `npx skills` / skills.sh search (different CLI), for writing SKILL.md content (skill-creator), or for marketplace browse/install (not in skm).
|
Skills Manager CLI (skm)
New here? This skill drives skm, the command-line tool that ships with
Skills Manager — a desktop app
(macOS / Windows / Linux) that installs one copy of a skill into a central hub
and symlinks it into every AI coding tool you use (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor,
Gemini, and ~30 more), so you write a skill once and it shows up everywhere.
If you found this skill on ClawHub but don't have Skills Manager yet, that is
the missing piece: skm is not a standalone binary you npm install. Get it
by installing the app from the official website
(then Settings → Command Line Tool, or run skm init), or grab a
skm-<target>.tar.gz / .zip from the
GitHub Releases page.
Source and docs: https://github.com/jiweiyeah/skills-manager.
skm is the terminal front-end of Skills Manager. It reads and writes the
same ~/.skills-manager/config.json and the same hub/tool symlinks as the
desktop app, so GUI and CLI are interchangeable.
It does not create, edit, search, translate, tag, or marketplace-install
skills. Those stay in the GUI (or you write files into the hub yourself, then
skm enable).
Preconditions
- Resolve the binary. Prefer
skm on PATH. If missing, say so and point
at install: the Skills Manager app
(Settings → Command Line Tool), or a release archive
skm-<target>.tar.gz / .zip from
GitHub Releases.
Do not fall back to npx skills — that is a different, unrelated CLI.
- Confirm with
skm --version. A stale binary from an older app release
should be updated from Settings or a matching release.
- Every command except
init requires an initialized config. If stderr
says so, run skm init --json once — it is idempotent and will not
clobber an existing config. skm init and Settings → Install CLI also
copy this companion skill into the hub and enable it for every currently
active tool, so you usually do not need to install it by hand.
Hub path is fixed at ~/.skills-manager/skills (%USERPROFILE%\.skills-manager\skills
on Windows). save() always rewrites skills_dir to that default; there is
no supported way to pick another hub from the CLI.
Agent conventions
These exist because skm is designed to be called by agents, not just humans.
- Prefer
--json on init, list, doctor, fix, and adopt (apply).
Data is one JSON document on stdout. Errors go to stderr as
{"error":"..."} when the command was in JSON mode, otherwise
error: .... A command can print a result on stdout and still exit 1
(fix with failed repairs) — parse stdout, then trust the exit code.
enable / disable have no --json. Success is a one-line
enabled '<id>' for '<tool>' (or disabled). Failure is error: ...
on stderr, exit 1.- Never wait on a TTY prompt.
adopt without --yes and without --json
blocks on [y/N]. Pass --yes when applying. --json also skips the
prompt (and therefore applies) — still pass --yes so the intent is
obvious in the command line.
skm adopt --json --dry-run is not a machine-readable preview: if
candidates exist it prints nothing. Preview with skm adopt --dry-run
(human text), then apply with skm adopt --yes --json.doctor --json exits 0 even when there are issues. Gate on
.issues_count, not the exit code.fix without --yes does not repair. JSON then looks like
{"applied": false, "issues_found": N, ...}. Apply with skm fix --yes --json.- Write commands (
init, adopt, enable, disable, fix --yes) take
an advisory lock on config.json and fail fast if another skm is
mid-write. Retry once. The desktop app does not take this lock.
- Do not enable a skill for every detected tool unless the user asked.
Pick the tool they named, or the host agent (see Which tool).
JSON shapes, exit codes, and the dry-run/apply matrix live in
references/json.md. Read that before parsing output or writing a script.
Command map
| Intent | Command |
|---|
| First-run / is it initialized? | skm init --json |
| What skills exist, and where are they linked? | skm list --json |
| Same, one tool only | skm list --tool <id> --json |
| Turn a hub skill on for a tool | skm enable <skill> --for <tool> |
| Turn it off (remove the link, keep the hub copy) | skm disable <skill> --for <tool> |
| Which tools are installed, any broken links? | skm doctor --json |
| Repair what doctor reported | skm fix --yes --json |
| Preview leftover real dirs in tool skill folders | skm adopt --dry-run |
| Move those dirs into the hub and relink | skm adopt --yes --json |
<skill> and <tool> accept an exact id, an exact instance_id, or a
unique prefix (claude → claude-code). Ambiguous prefixes error and
list the matches — do not guess, rerun with a longer token. Exact tool id
wins before prefix (trae is Trae, not Trae CN). Full ids and collision
notes: references/tools.md.
Workflows
First-run on a machine with no GUI
command -v skm
skm init --json
skm adopt --dry-run
skm adopt --yes --json
skm list --json
skm doctor --json
init on an already-initialized config returns
{"already_initialized": true, ...} and does nothing else. If
config.json exists but cannot be parsed, init refuses to overwrite it
— move or fix the file, then retry.
Make an existing hub skill available to a tool
skm list --json
skm enable <skill> --for <tool>
skm list --tool <tool> --json
Enabled state is derived from the link on disk, not stored as a separate
flag. enable creates the symlink (Windows: symlink → junction → tracked
copy). disable removes that link; the hub copy stays.
If the same skill id exists in both global and the active project, a bare
id is ambiguous. Use the instance_id from list: global:<id> or
project:<project_id>:<id>.
Add a brand-new skill (CLI cannot scaffold it)
- Write
~/.skills-manager/skills/<id>/SKILL.md with YAML name +
description. A directory is a skill if it contains SKILL.md,
skill.md, or meta.json.
skm enable <id> --for <tool>skm list --tool <tool> --json to confirm.
Do not copy the folder into ~/.claude/skills (or any other tool dir)
yourself — that bypasses the hub and adopt will later see it as an
unmanaged real directory.
Adopt skills that already live in a tool directory
adopt looks at active tools (enabled + detected) for real
directories that are not symlinks/junctions and not hidden. It moves
each one into the hub, then puts a link back at the original path.
- Duplicate hub names are skipped and left in place (contents are not
merged — they may differ).
- Preview first (
--dry-run), then apply (--yes --json).
- After apply,
list should show the new ids as enabled for the source
tool.
Diagnose "the skill is not showing up in Claude / Codex / …"
skm doctor --json
skm list --tool <tool> --json
Read the results in this order:
- Binary missing or not on
PATH → install, reopen the shell.
config_initialized false → skm init --json.- Tool
detected: false → the tool's config dir is not on this machine.
CLI does not re-detect existing tools on every call; a tool installed
after init may still show not installed until the GUI redetects or
the config is updated. Do not try to invent a custom tool from skm.
- Tool
enabled: false → CLI cannot flip that flag. Use the GUI Tools
page, or say so.
- Skill absent from
list → it is not in the hub (and not in the active
project). Write it into the hub or adopt.
- Skill present but not in
enabled_for → skm enable <skill> --for <tool>.
link_issues > 0 or issues_count > 0 → skm fix --yes --json. If
failed_count > 0, report the failed[].message values; do not loop
fix.- A wrong-target or deleted link is treated as disabled, not as a
doctor issue. Re-
enable to recreate the link over the tampered path.
fix only repairs what should_report_sync_issue flags. It will not
delete a real (non-link) directory sitting in a tool's skills folder —
that is what adopt is for.
Which tool
If the user named a tool, resolve it via references/tools.md and pass
--for <id>. If they did not:
| Host | --for |
|---|
| Claude Code | claude-code |
| Codex | codex |
| Cursor | cursor |
| Gemini CLI | gemini |
| OpenCode | opencode |
| Unsure | skm doctor --json, pick detected && enabled |
Prefix shortcuts that are unique today: claude → claude-code. Do not
use trae when the user said Trae CN (trae-cn), or qoder when they
said QoderWork CN (qoderwork-cn).
Out of scope (do not fake these with skm)
| Need | What to do instead |
|---|
| Search / install from skills.sh | npx skills / find-skills, or the GUI Marketplace |
| Author SKILL.md | Write the file; this skill only covers linking it |
| Tags, notes, favorites, translation | GUI |
| Add/remove a custom tool, bind a project | GUI |
| Enable or disable a tool itself | GUI Tools page |
| Change the hub directory | Not supported; always ~/.skills-manager/skills |
| Marketplace publish / ClawHub | GUI |
Install locations (when skm is missing)
The desktop app copies a bundled binary:
- macOS / Linux:
/usr/local/bin/skm if writable, else the first of
~/bin, ~/.local/bin that is already on PATH, else ~/.local/bin/skm
(then the folder may need to be added to PATH)
- Windows: next to the app executable (
skm.exe)
Standalone: GitHub Releases skm-<target>.tar.gz (.zip on Windows),
extract, put on PATH.
