skillshub tap

The tap command manages taps, which are GitHub repositories that serve as skill registries. Taps are cloned locally via git and provide a curated index of skills that can be installed with skillshub install. The default tap is EYH0602/skillshub.

Subcommands

tap add

Add a new tap to your system.

skillshub tap add <owner/repo>

You can also use full URLs:

skillshub tap add https://github.com/some-org/some-skills

Add a tap and install all its skills in one command:

skillshub tap add anthropics/skills --install

Clone a specific branch instead of the default:

skillshub tap add anthropics/skills --branch stable

The branch choice is persisted — future tap update calls will pull from that branch.

tap remove

Remove a previously added tap. By default, this also uninstalls all skills from that tap:

skillshub tap remove <name>

To remove the tap but keep its installed skills:

skillshub tap remove <name> --keep-skills

tap list

List all currently added taps. The skills column shows installed/available counts (e.g., 2/15 or 1/?).

skillshub tap list

tap update

Pull the latest changes from each tap’s remote and re-scan for skill changes. Shows newly added and removed skills since the last update.

# Update all taps
skillshub tap update

# Update a specific tap
skillshub tap update anthropics/skills

Under the hood this runs git pull --ff-only in each tap’s local clone directory.

tap install-all

Install all skills from a specific tap:

skillshub tap install-all anthropics/skills

How taps work

A tap is a GitHub repository that contains SKILL.md files organized by skill name. When you run tap add, skillshub performs a shallow git clone of the repository into ~/.skillshub/taps/<owner>/<repo>/. Skills are automatically discovered by recursively scanning the local clone for folders that contain a SKILL.md file — no special configuration is required.

When you install a skill, files are copied directly from the local clone instead of being downloaded from the GitHub API. Running tap update pulls the latest changes with git pull and re-scans for new or removed skills. If a clone becomes corrupted, skillshub detects the issue and automatically re-clones the repository.

Gist-based taps and the default bundled tap (EYH0602/skillshub) continue to use the GitHub API.

Requirements

git must be installed and on your PATH.
Public repositories work without any authentication.
Private repositories require git credential helpers or SSH keys configured for the host.

Note: The @commit version specifier is not supported for git-cloned taps (shallow clones cannot check out arbitrary commits). It remains available for gist-based taps.

Examples

Add a third-party tap:

skillshub tap add anthropics/skills

Tapping anthropics/skills...
Cloned 12 skills from anthropics/skills.

Add a tap and install everything:

skillshub tap add anthropics/skills --install

List all configured taps:

skillshub tap list

Name                     URL                                         Skills
EYH0602/skillshub        https://github.com/EYH0602/skillshub        2/15
anthropics/skills        https://github.com/anthropics/skills        0/12

Update taps to see new skills:

skillshub tap update

Remove a tap (also uninstalls its skills):

skillshub tap remove anthropics/skills

Remove a tap but keep installed skills:

skillshub tap remove anthropics/skills --keep-skills