skillz 0.2.0

skillz

A CLI for managing AI agent skills.

Skills are markdown files (SKILL.md) with YAML frontmatter that teach AI coding agents how to do something. skillz installs them from GitHub, GitLab, generic Git repos, or local paths — into whichever agents you have on your machine.

Install

dotnet tool install -g skillz

Requires the .NET SDK (8.0 or newer). After install, skillz is on your PATH.

Run without installing (dnx)

If you have the .NET 10 SDK (or newer), dnx runs the tool one-shot — no PATH shim, no global state:

dnx skillz add anthropics/skills

dnx is a shell script that ships with the SDK; it forwards to dotnet tool exec, which downloads the package into the NuGet cache and runs it. Subsequent runs hit the cache and are immediate.

First run prompts:

Tool package skillz@1.0.0 will be downloaded from source
https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json. Proceed? [y/n] (y):

Pass --yes to skip the prompt (useful in CI):

dnx --yes skillz add anthropics/skills

Pin a version with @:

dnx skillz@1.0.0 add anthropics/skills
dnx skillz@1.* add anthropics/skills      # latest 1.x

Allow prereleases:

dnx --prerelease skillz add anthropics/skills

Use a custom feed:

dnx --source https://my.feed/v3/index.json skillz add ...

If a .config/dotnet-tools.json manifest is in scope, dnx uses the version pinned there instead of the latest — handy for repo-local tool versions.

dnx skillz and dotnet tool exec skillz are equivalent; dnx is just the shorter form.

Quick start

# Install all skills from a GitHub repo into Claude Code
skillz add anthropics/skills --agent claude-code

# Pick specific skills interactively
skillz add anthropics/skills

# Install one skill into multiple agents
skillz add anthropics/skills --skill code-review --agent claude-code --agent cursor

# Install everything into every detected agent, no prompts
skillz add anthropics/skills --all

# List what's installed
skillz list

# Update installed skills to the latest version
skillz update

# Remove a skill
skillz remove code-review

# Scaffold a new skill
skillz init my-skill

Sources

skillz add <source> understands several source forms:

By default skillz performs a shallow clone for speed. Pass --full-depth to clone full history.

Scope: project vs. global

Without --global, skills are added to the current project (recorded in skills-lock.json in the working directory). With --global, they're installed once for your user under your XDG data dir ($XDG_DATA_HOME/skillz or ~/.local/share/skillz), with the global lock file (.skill-lock.json) kept alongside the installed skills in that same directory.

Agents

skillz supports 55+ AI coding agents — Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Continue, Gemini CLI, and many more. Detection is automatic; the --agent <name> flag (repeatable) targets specific ones. Run skillz list after install to see which agents on your machine were updated.

By default skills are symlinked from a canonical location so editing one place updates every agent. Pass --copy to copy files instead — useful for sandboxed agents that don't follow symlinks.

Authoring a skill

skillz init my-skill

…creates my-skill/SKILL.md with the right frontmatter shape:

---
name: my-skill
description: A brief description of what this skill does
---

# my-skill

Instructions for the agent to follow when this skill is activated.

Push the file to a public repo and anyone can install it with skillz add <owner>/<repo>.

Commands

Common flags: --global / -g, --agent / -a <name>, --skill / -s <name>, --yes / -y, --all, --copy, --full-depth, --list / -l, --json.

skillz <command> --help shows the full option list for each command.

Source code

https://github.com/PascalSenn/skillz

License

MIT — see LICENSE.