Skillcaddy

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Local AI skills central library + per-project symlink enablement. One AISkills directory holds every skill source; symlink what you need into any project on demand.

Why Skillcaddy?

If you use Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, or Pi across multiple projects, you eventually hit one of these:

• The same skill lives in three repos, slightly drifted each time
• A new project means copying skills over and wondering which version is current
• An upstream skill gets updated but your local copy is weeks behind
• A Claude-Code-only entry needs to coexist with the agents-side list
• An archived skill slips back in because no one gated it

Skillcaddy fixes this with one AISkills directory as the source of truth and per-project symlinks as the delivery mechanism.

• One source of truth — ~/AISkills/ aggregates official / github / personal / archived / skills
• Zero project pollution — enable by symlink into .agents/skills/; never copy
• Multi-Agent by default — one symlink reaches Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi via their standard paths
• Independent enable / disable — agents-side and Claude-Code-side are tracked separately
• Safe by default — disable only removes the symlink; archived/ requires explicit naming
• Contribute-friendly — new skills land under skills/<name>/ with SKILL.md + agents/openai.yaml and ship with the repo

Whether you're a solo dev with half a dozen repos, a small team standardizing on shared skills, or an author publishing reusable ones — the contract is the same: skills belong to your library, not to any one project.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/chenweil/skillcaddy.git
cd skillcaddy
npm start

Requires Node.js >= 20. The web manager uses the fixed default URL http://127.0.0.1:4173. Fill in the target project path on the page, and enable/disable skills. If that port is temporarily occupied, start with PORT=<other-port> npm start.

You can also pass the project path through the URL:

http://127.0.0.1:4173/?projectPath=<encoded-project-path>

The page loads that project immediately, keeps recently used project paths in browser-local history, and lets you bulk-enable all available skills from a library with the library-level + button. If a library was enabled by mistake, use the library-level × button to clean that library from both Agents and Claude Code.

Skill metadata

SKILL.md remains the Agent-facing contract. For human-facing notes and categorization, add an optional skillcaddy.json next to SKILL.md:

{
  "note": "Useful before and after code changes to keep execution disciplined.",
  "tags": ["Developer Tools", "Quality", "Workflow"],
  "autoEnable": true
}

The web UI reads and edits this file directly. Tags appear as filter tabs and badge pills; notes are shown on each skill card. Set autoEnable to false to exclude a deprecated or risky skill from library-level bulk enable while still allowing single-skill manual enable. This keeps upstream SKILL.md files clean while still making a large local library easier to browse.

Platform compatibility

Platform	Status	Notes
macOS	✅ Fully supported	Native directory symlinks
Linux	✅ Fully supported	Native directory symlinks
Windows	⚠️ Extra setup required	See below

Windows prerequisites

Skillcaddy creates directory symlinks via Node's fs.symlink(..., 'dir'). On Windows this call requires one of the following or it throws EPERM:

1. Enable Developer Mode (recommended)
   • Settings → Privacy & Security → For developers → Developer Mode
   • Applies to Windows 10 Creators Update (1703) and above
2. Run as Administrator
   • Run npm start in an elevated terminal

Known Windows limitations

• readlink may return the target with a \\?\ prefix or backslashes, which can affect the duplicate-alias-target detection (existingTarget !== resolvedSkillPath check in enableSkill).
• NTFS is case-insensitive by default, but the code compares aliases case-sensitively. Usually fine in practice, but aliases that differ only in case are treated as two different skills.
• No Windows-specific path normalization, junction fallback, or copy-downgrade.

Planned compatibility improvements (not implemented)

To make Skillcaddy work out of the box on Windows, the following strategies will be introduced later — but none are implemented in the current version:

• Platform branch: when process.platform === 'win32' is detected, prefer junction (fs.symlink(target, path, 'junction')); junctions don't require Developer Mode.
• Failure fallback: catch EPERM and recursively copy skill contents into .agents/skills/, and modify disableSkill to remove the real directory.
• Path normalization: resolveLinkTarget strips the \\?\ prefix, normalizes separators, and compares case-insensitively on Windows.
• README Windows section: add PowerShell commands, disk-format requirements (NTFS), and a junction-vs-symlink trade-off note.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Skillcaddy (central library)                 │
│  ~/AISkills/                                                    │
│  ├── official/      ─┬─ my-skill/SKILL.md                       │
│  ├── github/        ─┤                                          │
│  ├── personal/      ─┴─ another-skill/SKILL.md                  │
│  ├── archived/                                                   │
│  └── skills/         ← bundled with the repo (source: local)    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
              Symlinks created on enable
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                         Project directory                        │
│  ~/projects/my-app/                                             │
│  ├── .agents/skills/                                            │
│  │   ├── my-skill ──────────────► ~/AISkills/official/my-skill  │
│  │   └── another-skill ─────────► ~/AISkills/personal/...       │
│  └── .claude/skills/                                            │
│  │   ├── my-skill ──► ../../.agents/skills/my-skill             │
│  │   └── another-skill ─► ../../.agents/skills/another-skill    │
│  └── .opencode/skills/  (optional)                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
      Each Agent auto-discovers and loads skills directories
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Agent          │ Project-level skills path   │ User-level path │
│─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│  Claude Code    │ .claude/skills/             │ ~/.claude/skills │
│  OpenCode       │ .opencode/skills/           │ ~/.config/...    │
│                 │ .claude/skills/             │ ~/.claude/skills │
│                 │ .agents/skills/             │ ~/.agents/skills │
│  Codex          │ .agents/skills/             │ ~/.agents/skills │
│  Pi             │ .pi/skills/                 │ ~/.pi/agent/...  │
│                 │ .agents/skills/             │ ~/.agents/skills │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Core design:

• .agents/skills is the cross-Agent standard path; every Agent recognizes it.
• .claude/skills is Claude-Code-specific, but uses secondary symlinks pointing back into .agents/skills.
• Enable once, share across multiple Agents; disable only removes the symlink, source files stay safe.

Directory layout

skillcaddy/
├── official/      # Official / upstream skills (gitignored, fill locally)
├── github/        # Skills cloned from GitHub (gitignored)
├── personal/      # Personal original skills (gitignored)
├── archived/      # Retired skills (gitignored)
├── skills/        # Repo-bundled skills (shipped with this project; currently hosts skillcaddy-manager)
├── lib/           # Manager code
├── public/        # Web UI
├── scripts/       # Maintenance scripts (e.g. pull-github.sh)
├── server.js
└── test/

The four external skill source directories (official / github / personal / archived) are added to .gitignore; after clone they're empty shells — fill them as described in Adding a skill below. skills/ is the repo-bundled source, shipped with this project, and is not in .gitignore.

Each skill is a subdirectory. A SKILL.md is recommended (describes when and how to use it):

official/
└── my-skill/
    └── SKILL.md

Adding a skill

Drop in directly (simplest):

mkdir -p official/my-skill
# write the files into official/my-skill/

Clone from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/some/repo.git github/some-skill

Bundled with this repo (only when contributing to Skillcaddy itself):

skills/<skill-name>/
├── SKILL.md
└── agents/
    └── openai.yaml   # Codex / OpenCode metadata (optional)

Skills under skills/ are tagged during scan as source: 'local', id: 'local/<name>' — behavior is identical to other sources and they can be enabled into any project's .agents/skills/.

On startup the manager scans every source directory (official / github / personal / archived / skills); no service restart is needed to see new skills in the UI.

Updating GitHub sources

Bulk fast-forward pull every github/ sub-repo. Dirty working trees are automatically skipped, so local edits won't be clobbered:

npm run pull:github

Skills bundled with this project

skillcaddy-manager

Lets an Agent (especially Codex) know how to use Skillcaddy itself correctly:

• List currently available skills (source / collection / alias / path)
• Enable / disable a single skill, or batch-operate on a whole source / collection
• Sync Claude Code entry points
• Update GitHub-source local clones
• Health check (broken links, alias conflicts, archived mis-enabled)
• Detect conflicts and require user confirmation

Safety rules: only operate on project-side .agents/skills symlinks; never delete central source files; never touch archived/ unless explicitly named; always produce a dry-run summary before any state change.

Invocation: agents/openai.yaml sets allow_implicit_invocation: true, so the Agent auto-loads it when seeing a relevant request.

Enable / Disable

Enable: creates a symlink under the project's .agents/skills/ pointing back into the central library.

<project>/.agents/skills/<alias> -> <skillcaddy>/<source>/<skill>

Sync Claude: creates a .claude/skills/ entry point for Claude Code, where each skill symlinks into .agents/skills/.

<project>/.claude/skills/<alias> -> ../../.agents/skills/<alias>

Disable: removes the symlink. The source file is left untouched.

Why two layers of symlinks?

• .agents/skills is the Agent Skills standard; Codex / OpenCode / Pi all recognize it.
• .claude/skills lets Claude Code use them too, with independent enable/disable.
• Enable once, share across Agents; disable doesn't touch the source files — safe and reversible.

Tests

npm test