# Manage Skills

> Manage the user's agent-skill library via the local skills-manager-cli — install, update, remove, enable/disable, sync, search, adopt, and tag skills in a central library that's shared across every installed agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, etc.). Use this whenever the user wants to install or find or update or remove or list a skill, see what skills they have, sync skills…

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-xingkongliang-skills-manager-manage-skills`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [xingkongliang](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/xingkongliang)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Search](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/search)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [xingkongliang](https://github.com/xingkongliang)
- **Source:** https://github.com/xingkongliang/skills-manager/tree/main/skills/manage-skills

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-xingkongliang-skills-manager-manage-skills
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

## Before doing anything

1. Confirm the CLI is available: `command -v skills-manager-cli`. If it's not on PATH, this skill doesn't apply — fall back to find-skills (or tell the user to install skills-manager).
2. **Always pass `--json` when you parse output yourself.** Pretty-printed output is for the user; JSON is for you. Errors come back as `{"ok": false, "error": "..."}` on stderr with a non-zero exit code.

```bash
skills-manager-cli --json skills list
```

## Mental model

There's **one central library** at `~/.skills-manager/skills/` that all agents share. Each skill in the library has metadata in a SQLite DB (source URL, preset membership, tags, enabled flag). A **preset** is a named group of skills. The active preset gets **synced** out to every enabled agent's skill directory (`~/.claude/skills/`, `~/.cursor/skills/`, etc.) by symlink or copy.

So the lifecycle is: **install → (in library) → add to preset → sync → (visible to agent)**. `install --sync` is the shortcut that does all three.

Internally, presets are still stored as scenarios for backward-compatible Git Backup. The CLI and UI call them presets.

## Install

```bash
# From skills.sh marketplace
skills-manager-cli skills install vercel-labs/agent-skills@react-best-practices

# Any git URL (use /tree/branch/subpath form when the skill lives in a sub-directory)
skills-manager-cli skills install https://github.com/anthropics/skills.git
skills-manager-cli skills install https://github.com/foo/bar/tree/main/skills/baz

# Local folder
skills-manager-cli skills install ./my-skill

# Force a source type when the ref is ambiguous
skills-manager-cli skills install foo/bar --skillssh
skills-manager-cli skills install ./looks-like/owner-repo --local
```

**Default is library-only** — the skill enters the DB but doesn't appear in any agent yet. To make it visible:
- `--sync` → add to the current active preset + sync to every enabled agent (most common, do this unless the user signals otherwise)
- `--sync-preset ` → add to a specific preset + sync
- Or later: `presets add-skill  ` followed by `skills sync`

**Ref resolution** is deterministic, no path-existence guessing:
1. Starts with `./`, `../`, `/`, or `~/` → local path
2. Contains `://`, ends in `.git`, or starts with `git@` → git URL
3. Matches `owner/repo`, `owner/repo/skill`, or `owner/repo@skill` → skillssh
4. Otherwise → error; pass `--local` / `--git` / `--skillssh` to disambiguate

**Always verify after install** with `skills list` or `skills show ` so you can confirm the skill landed and report the preset / sync state back to the user.

## Search

```bash
skills-manager-cli --json skills search "react performance" --limit 5
```

Each result has `install_ref` (paste straight into `skills install`), `installs` (popularity proxy), and `skills_sh_url`. Show the top 1–3 with install counts before installing — anything with 10K+ installs is battle-tested; anything under 100 needs a careful look at the source repo.

## Update / Check

```bash
# Re-fetch one skill (git/skillssh re-clones, local/import re-imports source dir)
skills-manager-cli skills update 

# Re-fetch all eligible skills
skills-manager-cli skills update --all

# Just probe remote revisions, don't touch files
skills-manager-cli skills check --all
```

`check` is the dry-run partner of `update`. Local-only skills (no git source) are reported as `skipped: true`.

## Remove

```bash
# Always preview first when removing more than one
skills-manager-cli skills remove  --dry-run

# --yes is required for the actual delete; --json mode does NOT auto-confirm
skills-manager-cli skills remove  --yes
```

Remove deletes the central-library copy, all synced targets across agents, and the DB row. It's not reversible without re-installing.

## Enable / Disable

```bash
skills-manager-cli skills disable    # skipped by future syncs
skills-manager-cli skills enable 
```

Disable is a "soft remove" — it stops the skill from being written into agent directories on future syncs, but **does not** purge already-synced copies. If the user wants the skill gone from agents *now*, follow up with `skills remove` or re-sync (the disabled skill will be cleaned up on the next sync of its preset).

## Sync

```bash
# Sync current active preset to all enabled agents
skills-manager-cli skills sync

# Preview the target list — safe, no writes
skills-manager-cli skills sync --dry-run

# Switch active preset, then sync
skills-manager-cli skills sync --preset "Web Dev"

# Only sync to a single agent (useful when one agent's directory got out of sync)
skills-manager-cli skills sync --tool claude_code
```

## Adopt skills installed elsewhere

When skills already live in an agent's directory (e.g. installed via `npx skills add` or manual `git clone`) but aren't in the central library, pull them in:

```bash
# Dry-run scan first — lists candidates without writing
skills-manager-cli skills adopt ~/.claude/skills --dry-run

# Adopt everything found — each becomes source_type=local (can't auto-update from git)
skills-manager-cli skills adopt ~/.claude/skills

# Adopt a single skill and pin it to a git source so `update` works later
skills-manager-cli skills adopt ~/.claude/skills/react-best-practices \
  --git-url https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills/tree/main/react-best-practices

# Or pass --git-subpath explicitly when the URL is just the repo root
skills-manager-cli skills adopt ~/.claude/skills/react-best-practices \
  --git-url https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills \
  --git-subpath react-best-practices

# Skill lives at the repo root? Pass an empty subpath
skills-manager-cli skills adopt ~/.claude/skills/my-skill \
  --git-url https://github.com/me/my-skill --git-subpath ""
```

`adopt` auto-excludes anything already in the DB or already a sync target, so it's safe to re-run. `--git-url` requires either a URL with a subpath (`/tree/branch/path`) or an explicit `--git-subpath` — without that, future `update` would re-clone the wrong directory, so the CLI refuses to guess.

## Tag

```bash
skills-manager-cli skills tag add  web frontend
skills-manager-cli skills tag remove  frontend
skills-manager-cli skills tag list    # tags on one skill
skills-manager-cli skills tag list           # all distinct tags
```

## Presets

```bash
skills-manager-cli presets list
skills-manager-cli presets current

skills-manager-cli presets add-skill  ...
skills-manager-cli presets remove-skill  ...

skills-manager-cli presets apply    # makes it active + syncs
```

Use `presets add-skill` when you want to put an already-installed skill into a *different* preset without re-installing it, or to share a skill across multiple presets.

## Health check

When sync misbehaves or a command errors in a confusing way:

```bash
skills-manager-cli --json repo status   # base dir, skill / preset counts, active preset
skills-manager-cli --json tools list    # detected agents and their target paths
```

These two are read-only and great for diagnosing "why isn't this skill showing up in Cursor" type questions.

## Typical workflows

### "Find me a skill for X" / "Install a skill that does X"

1. `skills search "X" --limit 5` — show the top 1–3 hits with install counts and source.
2. If a clear winner: `skills install  --sync`.
3. If ambiguous: ask the user to pick.
4. `skills list` (or `skills show `) to confirm it landed in the active preset and synced.

### "What skills do I have?"

```bash
skills-manager-cli --json skills list
```

The `enabled`, `presets`, and `source_type` fields are usually the most informative to summarize back.

### "Pull in the skills already installed in my agent directories"

1. `skills adopt ~/.claude/skills --dry-run` (and any other agent dirs the user mentions) — show the candidate list.
2. After user confirms: `skills adopt ~/.claude/skills`.
3. For any adopted skill where the user knows the original repo, follow up with `skills adopt ... --git-url ... --git-subpath ...` to restore the update link.

### "Update everything"

```bash
skills-manager-cli skills check --all     # see what has upstream changes
skills-manager-cli skills update --all    # apply
```

Report which skills actually refreshed (`refreshed: true` in the JSON) vs which were already up-to-date.

## Pitfalls

- **No active preset** → `skills sync` (without `--preset`) fails. Show the user `presets list` and pick one with them, or use `sync --preset `.
- **Install succeeded but skill doesn't appear in the agent** → install defaults to library-only. Re-run with `--sync`, or add it to the active preset and sync.
- **Adopted skills can't be `update`d from git** → `npx skills add` and manual `git clone` don't leave source metadata, so adopt has to treat them as `local`. Fix per-skill with `adopt ... --git-url ... --git-subpath ...`, or just `skills remove` + `skills install ` to start clean with a real source.
- **`--dry-run` only exists on `remove`, `sync`, `adopt`.** For `install` / `update` / `check`, the preview is a different command (`search` before install, `check` before update).

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [xingkongliang](https://github.com/xingkongliang)
- **Source:** [xingkongliang/skills-manager](https://github.com/xingkongliang/skills-manager)
- **License:** MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-xingkongliang-skills-manager-manage-skills
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/xingkongliang
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

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Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.