skills-man-cli

name

skills-man-cli

description

Use the skills-man `skill` CLI to install, sync, update, list, and uninstall AI agent skills from GitHub repositories. Use when a user asks how to manage skills with skills-man, configure global or local skill directories, install a skill or collection from a GitHub tree URL, set GitHub authentication for private repositories, inspect skills.toml state, or troubleshoot common skills-man CLI behavior.

Skills Man CLI

Overview

Use skill to manage AI agent skills from GitHub. The CLI downloads skill folders into skills/ and tracks install metadata in skills.toml.

Directory Mode

Choose the directory mode based on the user's goal:

• Global mode: pass -g or --global, uses ~/.skills-man/skills/ and ~/.skills-man/skills.toml.
• Local mode: omit -g, uses ./skills/ and ./skills.toml in the current directory.

Use local mode for skill sets that should stay under the current working directory.

GitHub URLs

Use GitHub tree URLs that point to a directory:

https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/tree/<ref>/<path>

<ref> may be a branch, tag, or commit SHA. Refs and paths may both contain slashes; the CLI tries candidate splits until it finds a valid directory.

Examples:

skill install https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/release/v1.0/path/to/skill

Core Commands

Use skill --help or skill <command> --help to check the current command syntax.

Install one skill:

skill install https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/path/to/skill

Install every skill inside a collection directory. A collection is a directory whose immediate child directories contain SKILL.md files:

skill install https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/skills
skill install --yes https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/skills

Re-installing a collection (via install or update --collection) also detects skills that were removed from the collection upstream. It lists them and, after confirmation (or automatically with --yes), deletes their local directory and skills.toml entry.

List installed skills:

skill list

Sync all entries from skills.toml. Sync downloads missing skills and prompts before replacing directories whose checksums show local edits:

skill sync
skill --global sync

Update one installed skill by reusing its recorded source URL:

skill update skill-name
skill update --yes skill-name

Update the collection that originally installed a skill:

skill update --collection skill-name

This re-installs the collection, so skills removed upstream are also detected and offered for local removal (see collection install above).

Uninstall a skill:

skill uninstall skill-name

Authentication

For higher GitHub API limits or private repositories, configure GITHUB_TOKEN or GH_TOKEN in the shell or in ~/.skills-man/config.toml.

[env]
GITHUB_TOKEN = "github_pat_..."

Shell environment values take priority over ~/.skills-man/config.toml.

Troubleshooting

Use skill list to confirm install metadata before update or uninstall.

Use skill sync when skills.toml exists and skill directories are missing.

Use skill update --collection <skill-name> when a skill came from a collection and the user expects sibling skills to update too.

Use --yes for non-interactive install and update flows.

Use a full https://github.com/.../tree/.../... URL when install reports an invalid URL.

Set GITHUB_TOKEN or GH_TOKEN when GitHub returns rate-limit, forbidden, or private repository access errors.