update-installed-skills

1# Update Installed Skills
2 
3## Goal
4 
5Keep installed skills current without breaking the agent's workflow or silently overwriting local customizations.
6 
7## Guardrails
8 
9- Always use `--dry-run` before running a real update.
10- Check what is currently installed before updating: `npx ai-agent-skills list --installed`.
11- Never update all skills at once in production without reviewing the dry-run output.
12- Use `--format json` to capture structured update results for logging.
13 
14## Workflow
15 
161. List currently installed skills.
17 
18```bash
19npx ai-agent-skills list --installed --format json --fields name
20```
21 
222. Check for available updates.
23 
24```bash
25npx ai-agent-skills check
26```
27 
283. Dry-run the update.
29 
30```bash
31npx ai-agent-skills sync <skill-name> --dry-run
32```
33 
344. Apply the update after reviewing.
35 
36```bash
37npx ai-agent-skills sync <skill-name>
38```
39 
405. For bulk updates, review each skill's dry-run output.
41 
42```bash
43npx ai-agent-skills sync --all --dry-run
44```
45 
46## Gotchas
47 
48- Skills installed from GitHub will attempt a fresh clone during sync. If the upstream repo is gone, the update will fail gracefully.
49- Manually edited SKILL.md files will be overwritten by sync. Back up customizations before syncing.
50- The `check` command makes network requests to verify upstream sources. It may be slow or fail if sources are unreachable.