Scenario 35: Add a remote skill package

Frequency: Common · Status: Shipped

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Use this when you want to install skills from a GitHub repo or local skill package in one step — similar to skills add, but with HarnessTap library import and optional layer composition.

Typical commands:

# Discover skills without installing
harnesstap add mattpocock/skills --list

# Install selected skills globally (non-interactive)
harnesstap add mattpocock/skills --skill caveman,tdd --global --yes

# Install all skills and create a reusable layer
harnesstap add mattpocock/skills --all --global --create-layer mattpocock-skills -y

# Install into the current project
harnesstap add ./vendor/skills --project . --skill triage --yes

The command:

1. Resolves the source (GitHub shorthand, URL, or local path) and clones into ~/.harnesstap/cache/sources/ when remote.
2. Discovers skills recursively under skills/ or .agents/skills/.
3. Imports all discovered skills into the HarnessTap library under a source namespace (for example mattpocock/skills).
4. Installs the selected subset to the hub at ~/.agents/skills/{name}/ (global) or {project}/.agents/skills/{name}/ (project), with fan-out symlinks to each target harness.
5. Optionally creates or updates a layer with namespaced skill refs such as skill:caveman@mattpocock/skills for downstream layer apply workflows.

After install, edit or apply the layer:

harnesstap layer show mattpocock-skills
harnesstap layer apply mattpocock-skills --project .

See Scenario 4 for adopting an existing project tree and Scenario 5 for building layers from already-imported resources.