Update Skills

update-skills

Pull the latest skill pack, link any newly added skills, summarize what changed.

When to invoke

• The user asks to "update", "upgrade", "refresh", or "sync" their AI Creative Agency skills
• The user asks "what's new" in the agency pack
• The user wants to install a skill they saw mentioned but doesn't have locally yet — chances are it shipped after their last update

Required environment variables

None. This skill only uses local git and shell.

What it does

1. Resolves the repo path (~/.claude/skills/ai-creative-agency is the canonical install location, but the user may have cloned elsewhere — fall back to the directory containing this skill)
2. Captures the current HEAD commit so we can diff against it
3. Runs git pull --ff-only — refuses to merge if the user has local changes, surfaces them instead so nothing is silently overwritten
4. Runs ./setup — idempotent, only links newly added skills, skips anything already linked
5. Diffs the new HEAD against the captured starting commit to list what skills were added/edited/removed
6. Surfaces a short "what's new" summary to the user
7. Reminds the user to restart Claude Code or run /reload-plugins so new slash commands appear in the current session

The procedure

Run these commands in order. Capture stdout/stderr from each. Surface a final summary, not the raw command logs.

# 1. Find the repo
REPO="$HOME/.claude/skills/ai-creative-agency"
if [ ! -d "$REPO/.git" ]; then
  # fall back to the directory containing this skill
  REPO="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)"
fi
cd "$REPO"

# 2. Heal the single-branch refspec trap
# Older installs used `git clone --single-branch --depth 1` which sets
# remote.origin.fetch to a single-branch refspec. That breaks every future
# update because origin/main never gets created locally. Detect and fix.
FETCH_REFSPEC="$(git config --get remote.origin.fetch || true)"
if [ "$FETCH_REFSPEC" != "+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*" ]; then
  git config remote.origin.fetch '+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*'
  echo "Fixed single-branch fetch refspec."
fi

# 3. Capture the starting commit (may not exist on a freshly-healed clone)
BEFORE="$(git rev-parse HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo '')"

# 4. Refuse to update if the user has uncommitted local changes
if [ -n "$(git status --porcelain 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
  echo "⚠️  Local changes detected in $REPO. Stash or commit them first, then re-run /update-skills."
  exit 1
fi

# 5. Fetch all branches so origin/main exists
git fetch origin

# 6. Fast-forward only — don't silently merge
git pull --ff-only

# 5. Idempotent re-link to pick up new skills
./setup

# 6. Diff the new HEAD against the starting commit
AFTER="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"
if [ "$BEFORE" = "$AFTER" ]; then
  echo "Already up to date. No new commits."
else
  echo "Updated: $BEFORE → $AFTER"
  echo
  echo "New / changed skills:"
  git diff --name-status "$BEFORE..$AFTER" -- '*/SKILL.md' | sed 's|/SKILL.md||' | sort -u
  echo
  echo "Recent commits:"
  git log --oneline "$BEFORE..$AFTER"
fi

Output

Surface a tight summary to the user, not raw shell output:

✅ AI Creative Agency updated.

  <N> skills added
  <M> skills changed

New skills available:
  /<skill-name> — <one-line description from frontmatter>
  /<skill-name> — <one-line description from frontmatter>

Restart Claude Code or run /reload-plugins to use new slash commands in this session.

If the repo was already at HEAD:

✅ AI Creative Agency is up to date.
   Last commit: <short sha> — <commit subject>

If the user had uncommitted local changes, stop early with the warning above and don't pull.

Style guardrails

• --ff-only is mandatory. Never use a merge or rebase pull. The user may have a fork or local edits we shouldn't overwrite. If fast-forward fails, surface the conflict and stop.
• Never run git stash automatically. Stashing user work without their say-so is destructive. Tell them to handle it themselves.
• Never re-clone the repo. A failed pull is a signal to investigate, not to nuke and start over.
• Don't run ./setup --force or anything destructive. Plain ./setup is idempotent and respects existing top-level entries owned by other packs (per ETHOS).
• Surface the new-skills list, not just commit subjects. The user cares what they got, not what someone named the commit.

Failure modes

Cost

Free. Local git operation, no provider calls.