upskill

Install Agent Skills from GitHub repositories.

Note: This tool implements the agentskills.io specification. Your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) likely already supports this spec natively and can discover skills automatically. This tool is primarily useful for:

• Installing skills from private repositories
• Batch installing multiple skills
• Managing skills across projects

Install

• Standalone

  • macOS/Linux: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ai-ecoverse/gh-upskill/main/install.sh | bash
  • Custom prefix: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ai-ecoverse/gh-upskill/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --prefix ~/.local

• GitHub CLI extension

  • gh extension install ai-ecoverse/gh-upskill
  • Then run via gh upskill ... (or use upskill directly)

Usage

Skills are discovered by scanning for **/SKILL.md files per the agentskills.io spec.

List available skills:

upskill anthropics/skills --list

Install specific skills:

upskill anthropics/skills --skill pdf --skill xlsx

Install all skills:

upskill anthropics/skills --all

Overwrite existing skills:

upskill anthropics/skills --all --force

Subcommands

Subcommand	Description
list	List locally installed/discovered skills
info <name>	Show details about a locally installed skill
read <name>	Print the SKILL.md content of a locally installed skill
search <query>	Search ClawHub and Tessl skill registries

upskill list                        # Show local skills
upskill info pdf                    # Show skill details
upskill read pdf                    # Print SKILL.md content
upskill search "pdf converter"      # Search registries

Install sources

Besides GitHub repositories, skills can be installed from ClawHub and Tessl registries:

upskill clawhub:tavily-search                # Install from ClawHub by slug
upskill https://clawhub.ai/user/my-skill     # Install from ClawHub by URL
upskill tessl:postgres-pro                   # Install from Tessl registry

The owner/repo@branch inline syntax is also supported (the -b flag takes precedence if both are specified):

upskill anthropics/skills@main --list

Filter by subfolder

Use -p or --path to restrict skill discovery to a subfolder within the repository. This is useful for repos that organize skills in nested directories:

upskill adobe/skills --path skills/aem/edge-delivery-services --list
upskill adobe/skills --path skills/aem/edge-delivery-services --all
upskill adobe/skills --path skills/aem/edge-delivery-services --skill content-driven-development

This is equivalent to the Vercel Skills CLI's tree-URL syntax:

npx skills add https://github.com/adobe/skills/tree/main/skills/aem/edge-delivery-services --all

Install skills globally (personal skills)

Use the -g or --global flag to install skills to ~/.agents/skills instead of the project's .agents/skills/ directory:

upskill -g anthropics/skills --skill pdf --skill xlsx

When installing globally:

• Skills are installed to ~/.agents/skills
• If ~/.claude/ exists, skills are also installed to ~/.claude/skills/ (see Claude Code auto-detection)

Install to custom destination

Use --dest-path to install skills to a custom location:

upskill anthropics/skills --skill pdf --dest-path .claude/skills

This is useful for compatibility with tools that expect skills in different locations. Note that --dest-path disables Claude Code auto-detection.

Options

Option	Description
-g, --global	Install to ~/.agents/skills (personal skills)
-b, --branch <ref>	Branch, tag, or commit to clone
-p, --path <subfolder>	Only discover skills under this subfolder
--dest-path <path>	Custom destination path (overrides -g)
--list	List available skills without installing
--skill <name>	Install specific skill(s) (repeatable)
--all	Install all discovered skills
--force	Overwrite existing skill directories
-i	Add .agents/skills/ to .gitignore
-q, --quiet	Reduce output

How it works

1. Downloads the source repository as a ZIP archive from GitHub (no git required; ZIP installs require unzip, but not the gh CLI)
2. Falls back to gh repo clone if the ZIP path cannot be used and gh is available
3. Scans for all **/SKILL.md files (per agentskills.io spec)
4. Copies selected skill directories to .agents/skills/ (or custom destination)

ZIP-based installs work without gh, but require unzip. When the gh CLI is installed, authentication can be handled automatically via gh auth token, and gh repo clone may be used as a fallback if the ZIP path fails. If you hit GitHub API rate limits, authenticate with gh auth login.

Claude Code auto-detection

When --dest-path is not used, upskill automatically detects Claude Code environments and dual-installs skills:

• Local installs: if a .claude/ directory or CLAUDE.md file exists in the project, skills are also installed to .claude/skills/
• Global installs (-g): if ~/.claude/ exists, skills are also installed to ~/.claude/skills/

Using --dest-path disables this auto-detection — skills are only installed to the specified path.

Development

• Lint: make lint (shellcheck)
• Test: make test (network required for gh repo clone)
• CI runs lint + tests on pushes/PRs to main.

Related Projects

Part of the AI Ecoverse - tools for AI-assisted development:

• yolo - AI CLI launcher with worktree isolation
• ai-aligned-git - Git wrapper for safe AI commit practices
• ai-aligned-gh - GitHub CLI wrapper for proper AI attribution
• vibe-coded-badge-action - Badge showing AI-generated code percentage
• skills - AI Ecoverse skills collection

Acknowledgments

Several features in this release were inspired by the upskill implementation in slicc, including registry search, ClawHub/Tessl integration, and ZIP-based installs.