CLI overview - MasterSkills

The masterskills CLI ships on npm as @masterskills/cli (MIT, Node ≥ 20). Humans normally run only install and login; everything else is what your agent runs on your behalf — but every command works fine by hand.

npm install -g @masterskills/cli   # one-time global install
masterskills <command>

The CLI checks for new versions once a day and prints a notice on stderr when one is available; update by re-running the install command above.

Commands

Command	What it does
`install`	Set up MasterSkills for every detected coding agent
`login`	Authorize this device (one browser round-trip)
`logout`	Remove this device’s credentials
`whoami`	Show the signed-in user, organizations and plan
`list` / `search`	The skill catalog across your organizations
`add`	Install skills or kits into your agents
`update`	Check for and apply skill updates
`remove`	Uninstall skills from this machine
`sync`	Report installed skills, fetch pending changes
`agents`	Supported agents, detection status, linked skills
`link`	(Re)link installed skills into agent directories
`publish`	Publish a skill folder, interactively
`prepare`	Build a publish draft without uploading
`publish-draft`	Upload and publish an approved draft
`unpublish`	Archive a skill for the whole organization
`kit …`	Create and manage kits

Conventions

Full names. Skills and kits are always addressed as @org/slug.
--json everywhere it matters. list, search, update --check, prepare, agents, and the kit read commands emit machine-readable output — that’s what agents parse.
Non-zero exit on failure — safe to script against.
A 401 from the registry means the device token is missing or revoked; the fix is always masterskills login.

Files on disk

Path	Contents
`~/.masterskills/config.json`	API URL, device token, device/user/org identity
`~/.masterskills/skills/<org>/<slug>`	The central store — the only real copy of each installed skill
Agent skill dirs (e.g. `~/.claude/skills/acme--api-conventions`)	Links into the store, flattened to `org--slug`

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
`MASTERSKILLS_TOKEN`	Device token override — CI and service use; beats the stored token
`MASTERSKILLS_API_URL`	Registry base URL (self-hosted or dev); default `https://masterskills.dev`
`MASTERSKILLS_HOME`	Redirect all CLI state (config, store, drafts) away from `~/.masterskills`
`MASTERSKILLS_AGENTS`	Restrict the agent registry to a comma-separated id list
`MASTERSKILLS_AGENT_DIR_<ID>`	Redirect one agent’s base directory