Core Concepts

Skills

A skill is a SKILL.md folder a harness loads on demand. The CLI can install skills from three kinds of source, record where each came from, and re-fetch them later. Skills installed this way carry a provenance marker so skill list and skill update know their origin.

Sources

Source	Example
GitHub (short-form)	`brainbase skill add owner/repo` — or `owner/repo@ref` for a branch/tag
GitHub (subpath)	`brainbase skill add github:owner/repo/sub/path@ref`
Generic git	`brainbase skill add https://gitlab.com/owner/repo.git` — also `git@host:owner/repo.git` or `git+<url>`
Brainbase registry	`brainbase skill add brainbase://creator/slug@version`

A bare `creator/slug` is GitHub, not the registry

skill add owner/repo is parsed as a GitHub short-form, not a Brainbase registry skill. To install from the registry, use the explicit brainbase://creator/slug@version form. There is no git: scheme — generic git sources are plain https://…, git@host:…, or git+<url>.

Managing skills

bash

brainbase skill add <source>        # install a skill
brainbase skill list                # installed skills + their source
brainbase skill update <slug>       # re-fetch from the recorded source
brainbase skill remove <slug>       # uninstall

The skill registry

Skills can also be published to and discovered through the Brainbase registry. The search, info, and publish commands address registry skills as creator/slug. Installing one via add, however, uses the brainbase://creator/slug@version form (see Sources above).

bash

brainbase skill search "pdf"                          # search the registry
brainbase skill info acme/pdf-extract                 # registry details for a skill
brainbase skill publish ./my-skill                    # publish a SKILL.md folder
brainbase skill add brainbase://acme/pdf-extract@1.2.0  # install a registry skill

Skills inside the agent manifest

An agent's manifest lists skills under skills: using a source grammar like registry:creator/slug@^2.0 or a local ./path. Those are resolved at agent pull time, separately from the standalone skill commands here.