credentials

1# Safe Credentials Protocol
2 
3Many skills require API keys or other credentials to function or to access
4higher rate limits. This skill defines the standard safe credentials protocol
5for verifying and prompting for these credentials without leaking sensitive keys
6into the agent context or the conversation history.
7 
8## Safe Verification (No Leaks)
9 
10As soon as a skill that requires a credential or API key looks relevant to the
11user's request, you **MUST** immediately verify if the credential is present in
12the `.env` file (typically located in your home directory `~/.env` or the
13project root) — **before doing any other work** for that skill.
14 
15**CRITICAL**: You must verify the presence of the credential *without* printing
16its value to the terminal or reading it into your context.
17 
18### How to verify:
19 
20Use `grep` in quiet and suppress-errors mode (`-sq`) to check if the variable is
21defined in `~/.env`. The `-s` flag ensures the command works cleanly even if
22`~/.env` does not exist yet.
23 
24```bash
25grep -sq "^CREDENTIAL_NAME=" ~/.env
26```
27 
28Replace `CREDENTIAL_NAME` with the actual credential name required by the
29calling skill (e.g., `ALPHAGENOME_API_KEY` or `USER_EMAIL`).
30 
31-   If the command **succeeds** (exit code 0), the credential is present. You
32    can proceed.
33-   If the command **fails** (any non-zero exit code — whether the credential is
34    missing or the `.env` file does not exist yet), the credential is missing.
35…