Find Skills

Helps discover and install skills for goclaw.

Triggers

Discovery requests:

• “find a skill for X”, “is there a skill for X”
• “how do I do X” where X might have an existing skill
• “can you do X” for specialized capabilities
• “I need help with X”

Extension interest:

• “I wish I had X capability”
• “Is there a tool for X?”
• “extend agent capabilities”
• “add new functionality”

Management:

• “list skills”, “show installed skills”
• “update skills”, “remove skill”
• “install skill”, “add skill”

Quick Start

List Installed Skills

goclaw skills list
goclaw skills list --verbose  # Show detailed info including content

Install from URL

# From Git repository
goclaw skills install https://github.com/user/skill-repo

# From local path
goclaw skills install ./path/to/skill

Validate Skills

# Check if skill dependencies are satisfied
goclaw skills validate skill-name

Test Skills

# Test a skill with a prompt
goclaw skills test skill-name --prompt "your test prompt here"

Skill Locations

Skills are stored in a unified location:

Built-in skills are automatically copied to this directory on first run.

Installing Skills

From Git Repository

# Basic installation
goclaw skills install https://github.com/user/repo

# The skill will be installed to ~/.goclaw/skills/<repo-name>

From Local Path

# From a directory containing SKILL.md
goclaw skills install /path/to/skill

Updating Skills

# Update a specific skill (must be a Git repo)
goclaw skills update skill-name

Uninstalling Skills

# Remove a skill
goclaw skills uninstall skill-name

Finding Relevant Skills

1. Search Built-in Skills

Use goclaw skills list to see what’s available:

goclaw skills list --verbose

2. Browse External Sources

Official goclaw skills: Check the project repository for bundled skills.

Community sources:

• GitHub: Search for goclaw skill or agent skill
• Skills compatible with OpenClaw/Agent Skills format can often be adapted

3. Check Skill Metadata

Each skill has a description field in its YAML frontmatter that indicates when it should be used:

---
name: crawl4ai
description: This skill should be used when users need to scrape websites,
extract structured data, handle JavaScript-heavy pages, or build automated
web data pipelines.
---

Creating Custom Skills

If no existing skill meets your needs, create one:

Initialize New Skill

cd ~/.goclaw/skills
mkdir my-skill
cd my-skill

# Create SKILL.md with proper frontmatter

SKILL.md Template

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description of what this skill does and when to use it.
version: 1.0.0
author: Your Name
metadata:
  openclaw:
    emoji: 🎯
    always: false
    requires:
      bins: []        # Required binaries
      anyBins: []     # At least one of these must exist
      env: []         # Required environment variables
      config: []      # Required config keys
      os: [darwin, linux, windows]
---

# My Skill

## Overview

Brief description of what this skill does.

## Triggers

When this skill should activate.

## Quick Start

Basic usage examples.

## Reference

Detailed documentation.

Best Practices

1. Search first – Check if a skill already exists before creating
2. Validate before use – Run goclaw skills validate <name> to check dependencies
3. Test skills – Use goclaw skills test <name> to verify behavior
4. Keep skills lean – Skills should be concise and focused
5. Use references – Move detailed docs to references/ directory

Troubleshooting

Skill not found

# Check skill is in correct location
ls -la ~/.goclaw/skills/

# Verify skill has SKILL.md
ls ~/.goclaw/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md

Dependencies not satisfied

# Validate to see what's missing
goclaw skills validate <skill-name>

# Install missing binaries or set environment variables

Skill not loading

# Check skill format is valid
cat ~/.goclaw/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md

# YAML frontmatter must start with `---`
# and have a name and description field