Publish Skill

Publish Skill

Purpose

Automates the workflow of cherry-picking a skill from the private skills repo into the public worktree, committing it, and pushing it to the public GitHub repo — all in one step.

Required Configuration

This skill requires the following from the user's global copilot instructions (~/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md):

• ## Public Skills Publishing — paths and remote configuration:
  • private_skills_path: Path to the private skills repo (e.g., C:\Users\shsolomo\.copilot\skills)
  • public_worktree_path: Path to the public worktree (e.g., C:\Users\shsolomo\.copilot\public-skills)
  • public_remote_name: Name of the git remote for the public repo (e.g., public)
  • public_branch: Name of the local orphan branch (e.g., public-branch)
  • remote_branch: Name of the branch on the remote (e.g., main)

If any required configuration is missing, ask the user for the values and offer to add them to their ~/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md.

Instructions

When the user asks to publish or push a skill to their public repo:

1. Parse the skill name from the user's request. The skill name is a directory under the private skills path.

2. Validate the skill exists — confirm the directory exists at {private_skills_path}/{skill-name}/.

3. Check for uncommitted changes in the private repo. If the skill has unstaged changes on main, warn the user: "The skill has uncommitted changes on main. Commit them first so the public version is up to date."

4. Navigate to the public worktree:

   cd {public_worktree_path}
   

5. Cherry-pick the skill from main:

   git checkout main -- {skill-name}/
   

6. Review what changed — run git diff --staged --stat and show the user a summary of files being published.

7. Confirm with the user — use ask_user to present the file list and ask for confirmation before pushing. Example: "These files will be pushed to the public repo: \n\n- skill-name/SKILL.md\n\nPush to public?" with choices ["Yes, push it", "No, cancel"]. If the user cancels, unstage the changes (git reset HEAD) and stop.

8. Commit the change:

   git add -A
   git commit -m "Publish {skill-name}"
   

9. Push to the public remote:

   git push {public_remote_name} {public_branch}:{remote_branch}
   

   The pre-push hook runs automatically as a silent safety net — it blocks files matching sensitive patterns (secret, private, draft, journal, internal) but does not prompt interactively.

10. Return to the private repo:

    cd {private_skills_path}
    

11. Confirm success: "Published {skill-name} to the public skills repo."

Sync Check Mode

When the user asks to "check my public skills", "what's out of sync", or "which skills need publishing":

1. List published skills — enumerate directories under {public_worktree_path}.

2. Compare each skill — for each published skill, diff the private copy against the public copy:

   cd {private_skills_path}
   Get-ChildItem "{public_worktree_path}" -Directory | ForEach-Object {
       $name = $_.Name
       $diff = git diff --no-index "{public_worktree_path}\$name\SKILL.md" "$name\SKILL.md" 2>$null
       if ($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) { "⚠️  $name — out of sync" } else { "✅ $name — in sync" }
   }
   

3. Show a summary table — present results as a clean list with status icons:

   • ✅ skill-name — in sync
   • ⚠️ skill-name — out of sync (changed locally)
   • ❌ skill-name — missing from private repo (deleted?)

4. Offer to republish — if any skills are out of sync, use ask_user to ask: "Would you like to republish the out-of-sync skills?" with choices ["Yes, republish all", "Let me pick which ones", "No, just checking"]. Then follow the normal publish workflow for each selected skill.

Constraints

• Never push main to the public remote. Only push {public_branch}.
• Never publish multiple skills without explicit user approval for each one.
• Never modify the skill content during publishing — copy it exactly as-is from main.
• Never skip the confirmation step — always use ask_user to confirm before committing and pushing.
• Never skip the pre-push hook — let it run as a silent safety net for pattern checks.
• If the skill directory doesn't exist, list available skills and ask the user to pick one.

Examples

User says: "push notes to my public skills repo"

Agent runs:

cd C:\Users\shsolomo\.copilot\public-skills
git checkout main -- notes/
git add -A
git commit -m "Publish notes"
git push public public-branch:main

Agent responds: "Published notes to the public skills repo. The pre-push hook confirmed the push."

User says: "publish ado and teams skills"

Agent responds: "I'll publish them one at a time. Starting with ado..." Then runs the workflow for ado, confirms, then repeats for teams.

User says: "check my public skills" or "what's out of sync?"

Agent runs the sync check and responds:

✅ meeting-prep — in sync
✅ public-repo-setup — in sync
⚠️  daily-report — out of sync
✅ publish-skill — in sync
✅ skill-link — in sync
⚠️  work-item-health — out of sync

"2 skills are out of sync. Would you like to republish them?"