Skills

Skills is the public skill registry for Bot. It is a free service: all skills are public, open, and visible to everyone for sharing and reuse. A skill is just a folder with a SKILL.md file (plus supporting text files). You can browse skills in the web app or use the CLI to search, install, update, and publish skills.

Site: skills.com

Who this is for (beginner-friendly)

If you want to add new capabilities to your Bot agent, Skills is the easiest way to find and install skills. You do not need to know how the backend works. You can:

• Search for skills by plain language.
• Install a skill into your workspace.
• Update skills later with one command.
• Back up your own skills by publishing them.

Quick start (non-technical)

1. Install the CLI (see next section).
2. Search for something you need:
   • skills search "calendar"
3. Install a skill:
   • skills install <skill-slug>
4. Start a new Bot session so it picks up the new skill.

Install the CLI

Pick one:

npm i -g skills

pnpm add -g skills

How it fits into Bot

By default, the CLI installs skills into ./skills under your current working directory. If a Bot workspace is configured, skills falls back to that workspace unless you override --workdir (or SKILLS_WORKDIR). Bot loads workspace skills from <workspace>/skills and will pick them up in the next session. If you already use ~/.bot/skills or bundled skills, workspace skills take precedence.

For more detail on how skills are loaded, shared, and gated, see Skills.

What the service provides (features)

• Public browsing of skills and their SKILL.md content.
• Search powered by embeddings (vector search), not just keywords.
• Versioning with semver, changelogs, and tags (including latest).
• Downloads as a zip per version.
• Stars and comments for community feedback.
• Moderation hooks for approvals and audits.
• CLI-friendly API for automation and scripting.

CLI commands and parameters

Global options (apply to all commands):

• --workdir <dir>: Working directory (default: current dir; falls back to Bot workspace).
• --dir <dir>: Skills directory, relative to workdir (default: skills).
• --site <url>: Site base URL (browser login).
• --registry <url>: Registry API base URL.
• --no-input: Disable prompts (non-interactive).
• -V, --cli-version: Print CLI version.

Auth:

• skills login (browser flow) or skills login --token <token>
• skills logout
• skills whoami

Options:

• --token <token>: Paste an API token.
• --label <label>: Label stored for browser login tokens (default: CLI token).
• --no-browser: Do not open a browser (requires --token).

Search:

• skills search "query"
• --limit <n>: Max results.

Install:

• skills install <slug>
• --version <version>: Install a specific version.
• --force: Overwrite if the folder already exists.

Update:

• skills update <slug>
• skills update --all
• --version <version>: Update to a specific version (single slug only).
• --force: Overwrite when local files do not match any published version.

List:

• skills list (reads .skills/lock.json)

Publish:

• skills publish <path>
• --slug <slug>: Skill slug.
• --name <name>: Display name.
• --version <version>: Semver version.
• --changelog <text>: Changelog text (can be empty).
• --tags <tags>: Comma-separated tags (default: latest).

Delete/undelete (owner/admin only):

• skills delete <slug> --yes
• skills undelete <slug> --yes

Sync (scan local skills + publish new/updated):

• skills sync
• --root <dir...>: Extra scan roots.
• --all: Upload everything without prompts.
• --dry-run: Show what would be uploaded.
• --bump <type>: patch|minor|major for updates (default: patch).
• --changelog <text>: Changelog for non-interactive updates.
• --tags <tags>: Comma-separated tags (default: latest).
• --concurrency <n>: Registry checks (default: 4).

Common workflows for agents

Search for skills

skills search "postgres backups"

Download new skills

skills install my-skill-pack

Update installed skills

skills update --all

Back up your skills (publish or sync)

For a single skill folder:

skills publish ./my-skill --slug my-skill --name "My Skill" --version 1.0.0 --tags latest

To scan and back up many skills at once:

skills sync --all

Advanced details (technical)

Versioning and tags

• Each publish creates a new semver SkillVersion.
• Tags (like latest) point to a version; moving tags lets you roll back.
• Changelogs are attached per version and can be empty when syncing or publishing updates.

Local changes vs registry versions

Updates compare the local skill contents to registry versions using a content hash. If local files do not match any published version, the CLI asks before overwriting (or requires --force in non-interactive runs).

Sync scanning and fallback roots

skills sync scans your current workdir first. If no skills are found, it falls back to known legacy locations (for example ~/bot/skills and ~/.bot/skills). This is designed to find older skill installs without extra flags.

Storage and lockfile

• Installed skills are recorded in .skills/lock.json under your workdir.
• Auth tokens are stored in the Skills CLI config file (override via SKILLS_CONFIG_PATH).

Telemetry (install counts)

When you run skills sync while logged in, the CLI sends a minimal snapshot to compute install counts. You can disable this entirely:

export SKILLS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1

Environment variables

• SKILLS_SITE: Override the site URL.
• SKILLS_REGISTRY: Override the registry API URL.
• SKILLS_CONFIG_PATH: Override where the CLI stores the token/config.
• SKILLS_WORKDIR: Override the default workdir.
• SKILLS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1: Disable telemetry on sync.