dotharness/dotcraft/skill-installer

Skill Installer

Use this workflow when the user wants to install, import, test, or adapt a DotCraft skill. The installation surface is ordinary shell and file work plus the DotCraft skill verifier; there is no dedicated install tool.

Workflow

1. Prepare a candidate directory.

• If the user provides a local directory, inspect it directly.
• If the user provides an archive or URL, download/extract it into a temporary directory in the workspace.
• If the skill is inside a repository, clone or copy the repository, then point at the subdirectory containing SKILL.md.

1. Ensure the candidate directory is a DotCraft skill bundle.

• SKILL.md must be at the candidate root.
• The frontmatter name must exist. If the user or market flow provides a local install name, use that as the CLI --name value; it does not have to match the frontmatter display name exactly.
• Preserve supporting files where they are. Ordinary relative files such as root markdown/json files, docs/, references/, scripts/, assets/, and agents/openai.yaml can remain in the bundle when verification accepts them.

1. Run verification:

dotcraft skill verify --candidate "<candidate-dir>" --name "<local-skill-name>" --json

Omit --name only when the frontmatter name is already the desired local install name.

1. If verification fails, decide whether the failure can be solved by command arguments before editing files.

• If the problem is a display/local-name mismatch such as name: Git but the local install name should be git, retry with --name "git".
• Do not move or rewrite files only because they are root markdown/json files, docs/, or references/.
• Only make minimal candidate edits for real structural or safety problems: missing SKILL.md, missing required frontmatter, unsafe paths, path traversal, hidden control files, oversized files, or genuinely broken references that the skill itself requires.
• Preserve the imported instructions.

1. Install after verification succeeds:

dotcraft skill install --candidate "<candidate-dir>" --name "<local-skill-name>" --source "<where this came from>" --json

Use --overwrite only when the user explicitly wants to replace the current workspace source skill.

Post-install Review

After installation, load the installed instructions with SkillView(name). Then review the skill against the current workspace and environment by doing only checks that the skill itself makes relevant.

Examples of useful checks:

• If it assumes python, check the actual Python command/version or virtual environment.
• If it assumes a CLI tool, check whether that tool exists and whether the expected command shape works.
• If it references scripts or assets, confirm those files exist in the installed skill.
• If it assumes paths, package managers, shells, or config files, check those in the workspace.

Adapt the installed skill only for a concrete mismatch. Edit its files under .craft/skills/<installed-skill-name>/ with EditFile, keep the change narrow, and tell the user what you changed. Reinstalling with --overwrite restores the published version.