install-skill-cli

A CLI tool for installing skills deployed with the skills-jar-maven-plugin. Skills are AI assistant guidance bundles published as Maven artifacts.

Installation

npm install -g install-skill

Usage

Install a single skill

By registry name:

install-skill teavm-lambda

By registry name with a specific version:

install-skill teavm-lambda@0.1.2

By Maven coordinates:

install-skill ca.weblite:teavm-lambda-parent:0.1.2

Install from a .skills-versions file

When run with no arguments, install-skill reads a .skills-versions file from the current directory and installs all listed skills:

install-skill

This is the recommended way to manage skills for a project. Add .skills-versions to version control so all contributors share the same skill set.

.skills-versions file

A plain text file listing skills to install, one per line:

# Skills for this project
teavm-lambda 0.1.2
my-other-skill 0.3.1
some-skill

Format rules:

• One entry per line: name version or just name (latest version)
• Names can be registry skill names or Maven coordinates (groupId:artifactId)
• Lines starting with # are comments
• Blank lines are ignored
• The legacy name@version format is still accepted but deprecated

Examples of valid entries:

# Registry skill name with pinned version
teavm-lambda 0.1.2

# Registry skill name, latest version
teavm-lambda

# Maven coordinates with version
ca.weblite:teavm-lambda-parent 0.1.2

# Maven coordinates, latest version
ca.weblite:teavm-lambda-parent

.skills-versions.lock file

After installing from .skills-versions, a .skills-versions.lock file is created. This JSON file records the resolved Maven coordinates for each skill, enabling reproducible installs across machines and CI.

The lock file behaves similarly to composer.lock:

• First install: resolves all versions from .skills-versions and creates the lock file.
• Subsequent installs: reuses locked versions for unchanged entries. Only new or changed entries are re-resolved.
• Version changes: if you modify a version in .skills-versions, that entry is re-resolved on the next install.
• Force re-resolution: use --update to ignore the lock file and re-resolve everything.

Add .skills-versions.lock to version control to ensure all contributors install the exact same resolved versions.

Options

Option	Description
-d <dir>	Skills installation directory (overrides --global)
-g, --global	Install globally to ~/.claude/skills (default is local: ./.claude/skills)
-r <repo>	Repository URL with optional credentials: [user:pass@]repositoryUrl
-u, --update	Force re-resolution of all skill versions, ignoring the lock file
-h, --help	Show help message
-V, --version	Show version

Examples

Install all skills from .skills-versions to the default directory:

install-skill

Install all skills to a custom directory:

install-skill -d ./my-skills

Install all skills globally:

install-skill --global

Force re-resolution of all versions (like composer update):

install-skill --update

Install a single skill from a private repository:

install-skill my-skill@1.0.0 -r user:pass@https://maven.example.com/releases

How it works

1. Single-skill mode (install-skill <skill>): resolves the skill from the skills registry or by Maven coordinates, creates a temporary Maven project, runs the skills-jar-plugin:install goal, and copies the result to the target directory.

2. Batch mode (install-skill with no arguments): reads .skills-versions, checks .skills-versions.lock for previously resolved versions, resolves any new or changed entries, installs each skill, and updates the lock file.

Skills registry

Skills are looked up by name in the skills registry. The registry maps human-readable skill names to Maven coordinates. To register a new skill, open a PR against that repository.

License

Apache License 2.0