Coming from npx skills or manual management? Here's how to migrate

[runkids]

If you've been using npx skills, manually copying skill files, or any other approach to manage AI CLI skills — welcome! Here's how to switch to skillshare.

Why switch?

Pain point	How skillshare solves it
Prompted to select agents on every install	Configure targets once in config.yaml, never asked again
Removing a skill from one agent breaks others	Source files are never touched by target operations
No way to restore setup on a new machine	git clone your config + skillshare sync = full restore
Skills only flow one direction (install)	skillshare collect pulls improvements back from any target
Requires Node.js / npx	Single Go binary, zero dependencies

Migrate in 3 commands (Global Mode)

For personal skills shared across all projects:

# 1. Initialize — detects your AI CLIs automatically
skillshare init

# 2. Import existing skills from all your AI tools
skillshare collect --all

# 3. Sync — creates symlinks from source to all targets
skillshare sync

That's it. Your existing skills are preserved and now managed from one place.

Migrate a project (Project Mode)

For skills scoped to a specific repo — shared with your team via git:

cd my-project

# 1. Initialize project mode
skillshare init -p

# 2. Move existing skills to .skillshare/skills/
cp -r .claude/skills/my-skill .skillshare/skills/
rm -rf .claude/skills/my-skill   # sync recreates as symlink

# 3. Sync to all targets
skillshare sync

# 4. Commit
git add .skillshare/ .claude/skills/
git commit -m "Migrate project skills to skillshare"

New team members get everything with:

git clone github.com/org/my-project
cd my-project
skillshare install -p && skillshare sync

What about tracked/team repos?

If you had skills installed from a GitHub org:

Global (available in all projects):

skillshare install github.com/your-org/team-skills --track
skillshare sync

Project (scoped to one repo):

cd my-project
skillshare install github.com/your-org/team-skills --track -p
skillshare sync

The --track flag preserves .git history, so future updates are just:

skillshare update _team-skills
skillshare sync

Global + Project: use both

Most teams end up using both modes:

# Organization standards (global — every project gets these)
skillshare install github.com/org/standards --track && skillshare sync

# Project-specific skills (project mode — scoped to this repo)
cd my-project
skillshare init -p
skillshare install github.com/org/project-skills -p && skillshare sync

Need	Mode
Coding standards, security audits	Global — applies everywhere
API conventions, domain rules, deploy guides	Project — specific to one repo
Onboarding a new team member to a project	Project — clone + install + sync
Onboarding a new member to the org	Global — one install command

Full guides

• Migration Guide — step-by-step for every scenario
• Project Setup — project mode setup tutorial
• Organization-Wide Skills — organization sharing
• Comparison: Declarative vs Imperative — architectural differences explained

Questions?

Drop a comment below or open a Q&A discussion. Happy to help with any migration issues.