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Install an AI coding assistant skill

Source: R/install_skill.R
install_skill.Rd

Downloads (or copies) a skill into .agents/skills/<skill-name>/, the shared folder that Codex and other agents read directly, and into .claude/skills/<skill-name>/ for Claude Code. With scope = "project" (the default) both folders sit in the current working directory and the skill travels with the project. With scope = "user" they sit in your home folder and every project on the computer can use the skill.

Usage

install_skill(
  source,
  scope = c("project", "user"),
  link = FALSE,
  force = FALSE
)

Arguments

source

One of:

  • A full GitHub URL, pasted straight from the browser, e.g. https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/path/to/skill. A link to the SKILL.md itself also works, and so does a repository whose SKILL.md sits at the top level (the skill is then named after the repository). Refs containing / (e.g. release/v1) cannot be disambiguated from a URL; use the shorthand owner/repo/path@release/v1 instead.

  • GitHub shorthand owner/repo/path/to/skill (optionally @ref for a branch, tag or commit), or just owner/repo for a top-level skill.

  • A local filesystem path to a skill directory.

scope

"project" installs into the current working directory, "user" into your home folder.

If TRUE, put a relative symbolic link in each agent folder pointing at the .agents/skills copy instead of a second copy, so there is a single set of files to edit. Falls back to copying where links can't be created (typically Windows without developer mode). The default, FALSE, copies.

force

If FALSE, the default, stop rather than overwrite a copy of the skill that has been edited since it was installed or that ally did not install. TRUE overwrites it.

Value

Invisibly, a list describing the install.

Details

GitHub skills are fetched from the repository's zip archive: one download, no token, no API rate limit. Public repositories only.

Installing a skill that is already there replaces it. install_skill() records a fingerprint of the skill's files, so if a copy has been edited since then, or was not installed by ally at all, it stops rather than lose that work. Pass force = TRUE to overwrite it anyway.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Paste the SKILL.md link from GitHub
install_skill(
  "https://github.com/posit-dev/skills/blob/main/r-lib/r-cli-app/SKILL.md"
)

# Make it available to every project on this computer
install_skill("posit-dev/skills/r-lib/r-cli-app", scope = "user")

# Local path
install_skill("~/my-skills/r-style-guide")
} # }