Skiplabs Skipper Skills Skipper Setup

Skipper setup & onboarding

Get a machine ready to use Skipper. A couple of steps are automatable; the ones that matter most — account, login, payment — need a human at a browser. Your job is to detect what's missing and guide, never to fake them.

What you can and cannot do

Step 1 — The CLI command

Always invoke the CLI as npx --yes @skiplabs/skipper. Don't use a skipper on PATH — it may be a different tool or a local dev build pointing at the wrong backend. Below, skipper <cmd> means npx --yes @skiplabs/skipper <cmd>.

Step 2 — See what's missing

skipper status --json

Read .docker, .auth.token, .balance.total. Fix each failing one in order (Docker → login → balance), re-running status --json after each so you work from fresh state.

Step 3 — Docker

If .docker is not true:

• macOS — offer to start Docker Desktop and wait for it to come up:

  open -a Docker
  for i in $(seq 1 30); do docker info >/dev/null 2>&1 && break; sleep 2; done
  docker info >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "docker ready" || echo "still down"
  

• Linux / Windows / not installed — tell the user to start the Docker daemon, or install Docker first (https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/). You cannot install it for them.

Step 4 — Account & login

If .auth.token is not "valid":

1. No account yet? Point them to sign up: https://www.skipper.skiplabs.io.
2. Have them run login in their own terminal — it opens a browser and reads a pasted token from an interactive prompt:

   npx --yes @skiplabs/skipper login
   

   Do not run this with the ! inline prefix (and don't run it yourself). The token prompt needs a real interactive terminal; under Claude Code's ! shell stdin isn't a proper TTY, so the prompt mis-reads the paste and the CLI crashes with an "unsettled top-level await". A normal terminal works.
3. Ask the user to tell you when login finishes, then re-run skipper status --json and confirm .auth.token == "valid".

Never invent, guess, or hard-code a token, and never read it from the user's terminal output to store it yourself — the login flow is the only safe path.

Step 5 — Balance

If .balance.total is 0 or null:

• Tell the user to top up at https://www.skipper.skiplabs.io.
• Generation costs money: auto hard-gates at ≥ $10; create only needs > 0, but a non-trivial service will use more.
• Re-check with skipper status --json (or skipper balance).

Done

When .docker == true, .auth.token == "valid", and .balance.total > 0, the environment is ready. If the user came here to build something, hand control back to the /skipper:skipper-build skill to author the prompt.md, generate, and run.

Source: SkipLabs/skipper-skills — distributed by TomeVault.