skillmate

A full-screen TUI for managing agent skills across Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Gemini CLI.

Think of it as a k9s-style front end for the skills CLI: browse what's installed, search the directory at skills.sh, read the README inline, and install or remove with a single key.

Install

npm i -g skillmate
sm

Requires Node 20+. The skills CLI ships as a bundled dependency; no separate install needed.

Keybinds

| Scope | Keys | | --- | --- | | Global | left/right cycle tabs, ? help, q quit | | Installed | / filter, up/down move, tab switch agent, d remove, u update | | Discover | / search, enter detail, i install | | Detail | up/down scroll, esc back | | Settings | up/down move, space toggle, enter save, esc cancel |

Press ? inside the app for the full list.

What it does

• Lists skills that are actually installed for each supported agent, including universal skills under ~/.agents/skills that the upstream CLI underreports.
• Searches the public directory at skills.sh with a cached popular list as a fallback.
• Installs skills globally (~/.agents) or per-project, to one or more agents at once.
• Surfaces Claude Code plugins and settings alongside skills.

Config lives at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/skillmate/config.json. Skill cache lives at ~/.cache/skillmate.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm dev          # run from source with tsx
pnpm test         # vitest
pnpm type-check
pnpm build        # tsup -> dist/

The UI is Ink (React for the terminal). State is a plain reducer in src/store.ts. Anything that touches the filesystem or the skills CLI is in src/core/.

Credits

Built on top of vercel-labs/skills and the directory at skills.sh. skillmate just wraps that CLI with a keyboard-driven UI; the skill ecosystem and protocol are theirs.

License

MIT. Same as vercel-labs/skills, which keeps things frictionless for anyone who wants to fork, vendor, or ship this alongside the upstream CLI.