Skills Updater

Skills Updater

Manage, update, and discover Claude Code skills across multiple installation sources.

Supported Sources

Claude Code Plugins (~/.claude/plugins/):

• installed_plugins.json - Tracks installed skills with versions
• known_marketplaces.json - Registered marketplace sources
• cache/ - Installed skill files

npx skills (~/.skills/ if present):

• Skills installed via npx skills add <owner/repo>
• Managed by skills.sh infrastructure

Update Check Workflow

Step 1: Scan Installed Skills

python scripts/check_updates.py

Output format:

📦 Installed Skills Status
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✅ Up-to-date (12):
   • skill-creator@daymade-skills (1.2.2)
   • github-ops@daymade-skills (1.0.0)
   ...

⬆️ Updates Available (3):
   • planning-with-files@planning-with-files
     Local: 2.5.0 → Remote: 2.6.1
   • superpowers@superpowers-marketplace
     Local: 4.0.3 → Remote: 4.1.0
   ...

⚠️ Unknown Version (2):
   • document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills (unknown)
   ...

Step 2: Confirm Update Strategy

Present options to user:

1. Update All - Update all skills with available updates
2. Select Individual - Let user choose specific skills to update
3. Skip - Cancel the update process

Step 3: Handle Local Modifications

Before updating, check for local modifications:

# Check if local skill has uncommitted changes
cd ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<skill>/<version>
git status --porcelain

If local changes detected:

1. Create backup of modified files
2. Pull remote updates
3. Attempt 3-way merge
4. If conflicts:
   • Show conflict files to user
   • Offer manual resolution or keep local version

Step 4: Execute Update

For Claude Code plugins:

# Trigger marketplace refresh and skill reinstall
# This uses Claude Code's built-in update mechanism
claude /install <skill-name>@<marketplace>

For npx skills:

npx skills add <owner/repo> --force

Skill Recommendations

Fetch Trending Skills

python scripts/recommend_skills.py --source all

Sources:

• skills.sh - Leaderboard ranked by installs
• skillsmp.com - Curated marketplace (if accessible)

Output Format

🔥 Trending Skills
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

From skills.sh:
1. vercel-react-best-practices (25.5K installs)
   npx skills add vercel/react-best-practices

2. web-design-guidelines (19.2K installs)
   npx skills add webdesign/guidelines

3. remotion-best-practices (2.2K installs)
   npx skills add remotion/best-practices

💡 Personalized Recommendations:
Based on your installed skills (developer-tools, productivity):
- playwright-skill - Browser automation testing
- github-ops - GitHub CLI operations

Install Recommended Skill

After showing recommendations, offer to install:

Would you like to install any of these skills?
1. Install by number (e.g., "1" or "1,3,5")
2. Install by name
3. Skip

Version Detection Methods

Primary: marketplace.json

Read version from remote marketplace.json:

curl -s "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<owner>/<repo>/main/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json" | jq '.plugins[] | select(.name == "<skill>") | .version'

Fallback: GitHub API

If marketplace.json unavailable or version not specified:

# Get latest release tag
curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/<owner>/<repo>/releases/latest" | jq -r '.tag_name'

# Or latest commit on main
curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/<owner>/<repo>/commits/main" | jq -r '.sha[:7]'

Commit SHA Comparison

For skills tracking by commit (e.g., e30768372b41):

# Compare local gitCommitSha with remote HEAD
local_sha=$(jq -r '.plugins["<key>"][0].gitCommitSha' ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json)
remote_sha=$(curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/<owner>/<repo>/commits/main" | jq -r '.sha')

if [ "$local_sha" != "$remote_sha" ]; then
  echo "Update available"
fi

Smart Merge Strategy

When local modifications exist:

1. Identify modified files:

   git diff --name-only HEAD
   

2. Categorize changes:

   • SKILL.md customizations → Preserve user sections
   • scripts/ modifications → Keep local, note for review
   • references/ additions → Merge both
   • assets/ → Keep both versions if different

3. Merge approach:

   # Pseudo-code for smart merge
   for file in modified_files:
       if file == 'SKILL.md':
           merge_skill_md(local, remote)  # Preserve user customizations
       elif file.startswith('scripts/'):
           backup_and_warn(local)  # User scripts need review
       else:
           three_way_merge(base, local, remote)
   

User Interaction Patterns

Check for Updates

User says: "检查 skills 更新" / "check skill updates" / "update my skills"

→ Run scripts/check_updates.py and display results

Update Specific Skill

User says: "更新 skill-creator" / "update skill-creator"

→ Check and update only the specified skill

Discover New Skills

User says: "推荐一些好用的 skills" / "recommend skills" / "popular skills"

→ Run scripts/recommend_skills.py and show curated list

Full Update Workflow

User says: "更新所有 skills" / "update all skills"

→ Scan → Confirm → Handle merges → Update → Report results

Error Handling

Network errors: Retry with exponential backoff, cache last known state

Permission errors: Suggest running with appropriate permissions

Merge conflicts: Show conflict markers, offer resolution options:

• Accept local (keep your changes)
• Accept remote (use upstream)
• Manual merge (show diff)

Missing marketplace: Inform user if source is no longer available

Resources

scripts/

• check_updates.py - Scan and compare installed vs remote versions
• recommend_skills.py - Fetch trending skills from marketplaces

references/

• marketplaces.md - Supported marketplace documentation