# Skills Manager: One Hub to Sync AI Agent Skills Across 32 Coding Tools > Skills Manager is a Tauri desktop application that stores AI coding skills in a central folder and distributes them to supported tools via symlinks. Write or edit a skill once and every connected tool picks up the change automatically. A companion CLI handles headless setups. **jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager** — Free, open-source desktop manager for AI Agent Skills. Write a skill once, sync it to 32 AI coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and more) via symlinks. Local-first, MIT licensed. macOS, Windows, Linux. - Repository: https://github.com/jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager - Website: https://skillsmanager.freeourdays.com/?ref=gh - Stars: 998 · Forks: 63 - Language: TypeScript - License: MIT - Published: 2026-09-10 · Updated: 2026-09-10 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/jiweiyeah-skills-manager ## The Problem Skills Manager Solves AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and Codex each read skill files from their own configuration directories. A developer using more than one of these tools ends up maintaining separate copies of the same prompts, updating each copy individually when a skill improves, and manually enabling or disabling skills per tool. Skills Manager treats this as a synchronization problem. The app stores all skills in a single hub directory and creates symlinks from each tool's configuration folder back to that hub. When you edit a skill, every tool that has it enabled immediately reads the updated version. When you disable a skill for one tool, its symlink is removed without touching the original file. The hub remains the single authoritative source. The README describes support for 32 tools including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Trae, Cline, Augment, and Goose, with an extension mechanism for adding tools with custom paths. ## Symlink Strategy and Windows Fallback On macOS and Linux, a skill enabled for a tool creates a directory symlink from the tool's config path to the skill folder in the hub. The mechanism is straightforward on these platforms. Windows requires extra handling because directory symlinks need Developer Mode or elevation. Skills Manager tries three strategies in order, as the README describes: 1. A directory symlink when Developer Mode is enabled or the app runs elevated. 2. A directory junction (mklink /J) on a standard non-elevated account. 3. A tracked copy when junctions are also blocked; the source path is recorded in .skills-manager-source.json so the app can still disable the skill later. The README states that a standard, non-elevated Windows account is sufficient for all three strategies. If a tool is not detected on the machine, elevation cannot help: the tool's config directory must already exist. The app is ad-hoc signed but not notarized by Apple. The README notes that the Homebrew cask strips the quarantine attribute on install and links to the tap README for what that means and how to opt out. ## Installing Skills Manager On macOS, the recommended install method is Homebrew: ```bash brew tap jiweiyeah/tap brew install --cask jiweiyeah/tap/skills-manager ``` The README specifies the full tap path: Homebrew's official cask repository contains an unrelated cask that shares the skills-manager token, so a bare brew install skills-manager would install the wrong package. For Windows and Linux, the website at skillsmanager.freeourdays.com detects your OS and architecture and offers the right build. The Releases page also lists all builds directly: .dmg files for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, .msi and .exe for Windows, and .deb, .AppImage, and .rpm for Linux. On first launch, the app asks you to select a skills storage directory. It then detects installed AI tools automatically and links your skills. ## The skm CLI for Headless and Terminal Workflows Skills Manager ships a companion CLI called skm with every release. It reads and writes the same configuration and symlinks as the desktop app, so both can be used interchangeably. The README describes it as suitable for SSH and headless machines, dotfiles setup scripts, and quick status checks. Download the skm binary from the Releases page (skm-.tar.gz, or .zip on Windows), extract it, and put it on your PATH. Then: ```bash skm init skm adopt --dry-run skm list --tool claude skm enable ab-testing --for claude skm disable ab-testing --for claude skm doctor skm fix --yes ``` The init command handles first-run setup without the GUI, writing config and detecting tools. The adopt command moves skills already living in tool directories into the hub and relinks them; --dry-run shows the plan before applying it. The doctor command reports sync issues, and fix --yes repairs them. Both the skill name and tool ID accept a unique prefix: claude matches claude-code. Installing the CLI from Settings also copies a companion skill called skills-manager-cli into the hub and enables it for all detected tools. That skill documents the --json contracts and which commands skm does not implement, so other agents can drive skm without guessing flags. ## Marketplace, AI Translation, and the Command Palette Skills Manager includes a marketplace for browsing and installing community-contributed skills directly from within the app. The README also describes publishing to ClawHub: the release job runs npm run publish:skill, which queries ClawHub first and uploads only when the local version is strictly newer than what is already there. Re-running the job on the same version is a no-op. The --dry-run flag on npm run publish:skill validates the file list and version gate without actually uploading. The companion skill for skm is published to ClawHub automatically on every version bump. Agents that pull skills from the marketplace instead of the desktop app always get instructions matching the current skm binary, because the version in ClawHub is kept in sync with each release. An AI translation feature lets you translate skill names, descriptions, and content into a preferred language using an LLM. The README lists this as a key feature but does not describe which model or API is used internally. The granular control over which skills are active for which tools is a key operational feature: you can disable a skill for Cursor without disabling it for Claude Code, without deleting the original skill file from the hub. This is not possible with a manual copy-per-tool approach. The command palette, opened with ⌘K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux, provides quick navigation and actions across the app. The interface supports full English and Chinese. The README uses the phrase "bilingual UI" to describe this capability. ## Limitations: What Skills Manager Does Not Handle Skills Manager only links skills to tools whose config directories exist on the machine. If a tool is not installed, enabling a skill for it does nothing. This is not a limitation that elevation fixes, as the README states explicitly: the tool's own config directory must already exist. The tracked copy fallback on Windows is functional but less precise than a symlink: the README records the source path in .skills-manager-source.json so the link stays traceable, but updates to the hub skill require Skills Manager to propagate the change to the copy. The README does not document how often this synchronization happens or whether it is immediate. The app is not notarized by Apple. Users on macOS who have not installed via the Homebrew cask must either trust the ad-hoc signature or go through macOS's Gatekeeper override process manually. The tap README documents what the quarantine strip means and how to opt out of it if your security policy requires notarized software. The README does not document rollback behavior if a symlink or junction creation fails partway through enabling multiple skills simultaneously. The doctor command and fix command are the documented recovery path for sync issues. ## Maintenance and Licensing The last push was on 2026-09-10. Version 2.2.0 was released on 2026-08-25, following 2.1.9 on 2026-08-19 and 2.1.8 on 2026-08-09. The project is licensed under the MIT License, which permits use, modification, and distribution without requiring source disclosure. ## Conclusion Skills Manager is the right tool for developers who work across several AI coding assistants and want a single source of truth for their prompt files rather than manually copying them between tool directories. It is a poor fit for teams that need strict access control over shared skills or for CI pipelines running on machines without a supported toolchain path. Before installing, confirm that your target tools appear in the compatibility matrix at the Skills Manager website, since the symlink strategy depends on each tool reading from a known config path that must already exist on the machine. ## FAQ ### Does Skills Manager work with Claude Code? Yes. Claude Code is one of the 32 supported tools listed in the README. The skm CLI uses claude as the short form for the claude-code tool ID. The companion skills-manager-cli skill is enabled for Claude Code automatically when you install the CLI from Settings. ### What happens to my skills if I uninstall Skills Manager? The README does not document an uninstall procedure, but since the mechanism is symlinks, removing the app would leave the symlinks in place inside each tool's config directory. The hub directory and the original skill files would remain on disk. Manually removing the symlinks or running skm disable for each skill first would clean up the tool directories. ### Can Skills Manager run on a server without a desktop environment? The README describes the skm CLI as suitable for SSH and headless machines. Running skm init followed by skm adopt gives a fully terminal-only workflow. The desktop GUI requires a display and is not needed for a headless setup. ## Sources - [jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager on GitHub](https://github.com/jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager) - [License: MIT](https://github.com/jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager/blob/main/LICENSE) - [Project website](https://skillsmanager.freeourdays.com/?ref=gh) - [README](https://github.com/jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager/blob/main/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/jiweiyeah/Skills-Manager/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/jiweiyeah-skills-manager