rskills

Read remote Anthropic-style skills (SKILL.md + references/ / scripts/ / templates/ / assets/) without installing them. Built for AI agents that need to peek at a skill before deciding to install.

Install

bun install -g rskills
# or one-shot:
bunx rskills <command>

Usage

Read

# Fetch SKILL.md (raw markdown to stdout)
rskills read skills-sh://vercel-labs/json-render/json-render-react
rskills read github://anthropics/skills/skills/pdf
rskills read https://example.com/some/SKILL.md

# Fetch a sub-resource (references, scripts, templates, assets, or any .md sibling)
rskills read github://anthropics/skills/skills/pdf/reference.md
rskills read skills-sh://vercel-labs/skills/references/foo.md
rskills read claude://my-skill
rskills read claude://my-skill/references/api.md
rskills read --raw claude://my-skill   # literal file, no preprocessing

List

# List top-level entries of a skill
rskills ls github://anthropics/skills/skills/xlsx
rskills ls skills-sh://anthropics/skills/xlsx

# List a subdirectory within a skill
rskills ls github://anthropics/skills/skills/xlsx/scripts
rskills ls skills-sh://anthropics/skills/xlsx/scripts
rskills ls claude://my-skill

ls mirrors Anthropic's ls/Glob tools — it lists directory entries, while read fetches file content. Reading a directory path with read will error and suggest using ls instead.

Search

rskills search react --source skills-sh --limit 5
rskills search https://mintlify.com/docs --source well-known
rskills search react --limit 5 --format json   # switch output format

URI format

<source>://<identifier>[/<subpath>]

| Source | Example | Search | Read | List | |---|---|---|---|---| | skills-sh | skills-sh://vercel-labs/json-render/json-render-react | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | github | github://anthropics/skills/skills/pdf | — | ✓ | ✓ | | well-known | well-known://mintlify.com/docs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (requires files array in index) | | https | https://example.com/SKILL.md (must end in .md) | — | ✓ | — | | claude | claude://my-skill | — | ✓ (local) | ✓ |

Local claude skills resolve under <cwd>/.claude/skills/ then ~/.claude/skills/ (first match wins). By default, read strips YAML frontmatter and runs inline !`shell` / ```! blocks (respects shell: frontmatter and disableSkillShellExecution in settings). Use read --raw for the literal file.

Subpath detection

No subpath → fetches SKILL.md. With a subpath, rskills detects the boundary heuristically:

1. Known subdir (references, scripts, templates, assets, SKILL.md) — splits there
2. Extension on last segment — that segment is the subpath
3. Otherwise the whole path is the identifier

Output

• read prints raw markdown to stdout regardless of --format. Pipe it anywhere.
• ls prints structured { entries: [{ name, type }] } — TOON by default, switchable with --format json|yaml|md|jsonl.
• search prints structured results — TOON by default, switchable with --format json|yaml|md|jsonl.
• Errors exit with non-zero status and print a short message.
• Reading a directory path with read exits non-zero with a message pointing to rskills ls.

Built-ins from incur

rskills inherits incur's agent-friendly defaults:

• --llms / --llms-full — print a command manifest agents can read
• --filter-output <keys> — narrow structured output to specific fields
• --format <toon|json|yaml|md|jsonl> — pick the output serialization
• --token-count, --token-limit, --token-offset — token-aware output

Run rskills --help for the full list.