skills-primer

Prime your Claude Code sessions with preloaded skills.

Installation

# With bun (recommended)
bun install -g skills-primer

# With npm
npm install -g skills-primer

Note: Requires Bun runtime and Claude Code CLI

Quick Start

# Launch interactive skill selector
sp

# List available skills
sp --list

# Skip permission prompts (dangerous mode)
spx

Usage

sp                    # Standard mode
spx                   # Dangerous mode (skips permission prompts)
skills-primer         # Full command name

What happens when you run sp:

1. Scans ~/.claude/skills/ (global) and ./.claude/skills/ (local)
2. Shows interactive selector with autocomplete filtering (type to search)
3. Recently used skills appear first with ⏱ icon
4. Launches Claude with selected skills injected via --append-system-prompt

Examples

# Basic usage - select skills interactively
sp

# Use with Opus model
sp -- --model opus

# Non-interactive prompt with skills
sp -- -p "refactor this function"

# Continue previous conversation with skills
sp -- -c

# Dangerous mode (no permission prompts) + Opus
spx -- --model opus

# List all available skills
sp --list

# Clear recently used skills cache
sp --clear-recent

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | sp | Standard mode - prompts for permissions | | spx | Dangerous mode - auto-passes --dangerously-skip-permissions | | skills-primer | Full command (same as sp) |

Options

-h, --help        Show help message
-l, --list        List available skills and exit
--clear-recent    Clear the recent skills cache

Passing Options to Claude

Use -- to separate skills-primer options from Claude options:

sp -- --model opus           # Use Opus model
sp -- --model sonnet         # Use Sonnet model
sp -- -p "prompt"            # Non-interactive prompt mode
sp -- -c                     # Continue previous conversation
sp -- --help                 # Show Claude's help

Creating Skills

Skills are directories containing a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter:

~/.claude/skills/
└── my-skill/
    ├── SKILL.md           # Required: main skill file
    └── references/        # Optional: additional context
        ├── patterns.md
        └── examples.md

SKILL.md Format

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description shown in the selector
---

# My Skill

Instructions, patterns, and best practices for Claude to follow.

## Guidelines

- Guideline 1
- Guideline 2

## Examples

...

Skill Locations

| Location | Scope | Use Case | |----------|-------|----------| | ~/.claude/skills/ | Global | Skills available in all projects | | ./.claude/skills/ | Local | Project-specific skills |

Local skills take precedence if names conflict.

How It Works

1. Skill Discovery: Scans both global and local skill directories
2. Selection: Interactive multi-select with fuzzy search
3. Injection: Selected skills are concatenated and passed to Claude via --append-system-prompt
4. Context: Claude receives instructions that these skills were deliberately preloaded and should be followed

Cache

Recent selections are cached at ~/.cache/skills-primer/recent.json to surface frequently used skills first.

# Clear the cache
sp --clear-recent

License

MIT