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local-skills

Claude skills (also used by other coding tools) are distributed via plugins and normally installed in ~/.claude. This leads to each contributor to a project, or even each machine, having a different set of skills.

This little utility helps you install skills from Claude Code plugin marketplaces into your project's .claude/skills/ directory. Each project gets a curated, version-controlled set of skills.

Install as a skill to use from Claude Code

claude plugin marketplace add vgeshel/local-skills
claude plugin install local-skills@local-skills-marketplace

Then, ask Claude to install a skill locally, e.g.:

install skill locally systematic-debugging@obra/superpowers

Or install for CLI usage

npm i -g local-skills

or

npm i --save-dev local-skills

Usage

Add a skill

# GitHub shorthand
local-skills add superpowers@anthropics/claude-code/tdd

# Pinned to a tag
local-skills add superpowers@anthropics/claude-code/tdd:v2.0

# All skills from a plugin
local-skills add superpowers@anthropics/claude-code/*

# Full git URL
local-skills add my-plugin@https://gitlab.com/team/repo.git/my-skill

Update a skill

# Pull latest from upstream
local-skills update tdd

# Overwrite locally modified skill files
local-skills update --force tdd

If you've hand-edited installed skill files, update will refuse to overwrite them unless you pass --force. Skills pinned to a specific commit SHA are skipped automatically.

Remove a skill

local-skills remove tdd

Specifier Format

<plugin>@<marketplace>/<skill>[:<version>]

Part	Description
plugin	Plugin name in the marketplace
marketplace	GitHub owner/repo or full git URL
skill	Skill name (or * for all)
version	Optional git ref (tag, branch)

Tracked Files

Both files are intended to be committed to git.

Manifest (local-skills.json)

Declares what skills are installed and from where:

{
  "skills": {
    "tdd": {
      "source": "superpowers@anthropics/claude-code",
      "ref": "main",
      "sha": "abc123def456..."
    }
  }
}

State file (local-skills-state.json)

Records what the skill files looked like at install time, so update can detect local modifications:

{
  "skills": {
    "tdd": {
      "contentHash": "45019b204ee8..."
    }
  }
}

How It Works

1. Parses the specifier to identify the plugin, marketplace, skill, and optional version
2. Shallow-clones the marketplace git repo
3. Reads .claude-plugin/marketplace.json to find the plugin
4. Copies the skill directory to .claude/skills/<skill-name>/
5. Records the source, ref, and commit SHA in the manifest
6. Computes a content hash of the installed files and stores it in the state file

Update behavior

• Pinned SHA — if the ref in the manifest is a 40-character commit SHA, the skill is considered pinned and the update is skipped
• Local modification detection — the content hash of the installed files is compared against the stored hash; if they differ, the update is refused unless --force is passed
• No state file — if the state file is missing (e.g. from a pre-existing install), the modification check is skipped and the update proceeds unconditionally

Development

pnpm run typecheck        # Type checking
pnpm run lint             # ESLint
pnpm run test             # Watch mode
pnpm run test:run         # Single run
pnpm run test:coverage    # Coverage (100% required)

License

MIT