Install a skill

This is the consumer path: get skills from a registry into a project so your coding agents can use them. Make sure you're signed in so private registries are visible.

Every skill page carries the exact one-line install command, alongside its scan status, dist-tags, and agent compatibility — so you can copy the right ref straight from the web app.

1. Bootstrap the project

Run init at the root of your project. It sets everything up in one shot:

skillhub init

init creates the local project config directory (config plus lockfile), writes a managed .gitignore block so nothing it produces becomes a stageable change, and detects the coding agents already installed on your machine. If you're logged in, it can also offer your organization's default skillsets and any project skills bound to the repo.

You can steer it with flags — for example, target specific agents or subscribe to a skillset during bootstrap:

skillhub init --agent claude-code,cursor --skillset @studio/skillsets/new-client-project

Prefer to set up skills for the whole machine rather than one project? Use the global scope:

skillhub init --global

2. Install skills

Once the project is bootstrapped, install what you need. The install target can be a single skill, a whole registry, or a curated skillset:

skillhub install @studio/design-systems/tokens-workflow

skillhub install @studio/design-systems

skillhub install @studio/skillsets/new-client-project

Installing a whole registry records a subscription: by default it follows the registry, so skills published there later are picked up on your next sync. Learn more in Registry subscriptions.

3. How it reaches your agents

Skills install once into a canonical local store and then fan out by symlink into each detected agent's skills directory. That's why a single install shows up across every agent, and why updating once updates everywhere.

See what's installed at any time:

skillhub list

Fresh clones: reconcile with sync

When a teammate clones a repo that already has a lockfile, they don't need to re-run every install by hand. Running install with no arguments reconciles the existing subscriptions and pulls everything down:

skillhub install

To keep an existing checkout aligned with its subscriptions later, use sync:

skillhub sync

sync applies adds, updates, and removes within your declared version ranges and verifies content hashes. Add --prune to drop skills the subscription set no longer contains, or --frozen in CI to fail if the lockfile would change.

What's next

• Understand refs and scopes — how references resolve and how project vs global scope works.
• Explore skillsets for team-wide onboarding.