OpenClaw Agent Skills

Shared skills for coding agents that work on OpenClaw projects.

This repo is the public canonical source for common workflows such as review closeout and remote validation. The goal is simple: write a workflow once, reuse it everywhere, and avoid hand-copying long SKILL.md files across every repo. See VISION.md for catalog boundaries and admission principles.

Included Skills

• agent-transcript: local-only, redacted PR/issue transcript provenance.
• autoreview: structured closeout/code-review workflow plus helper script.
• behavior-validator: source-blind validation of user-visible behavior against a contract.
• beam: self-contained, authenticated, redacted publication of local coding sessions to a read-only OpenClaw catalog.
• crabbox: Crabbox/Testbox remote validation workflow for broad or CI-parity proof.
• handoff: path-free prompt handoff workflow for delegating a task to another agent.
• readme-standard: house README structure, badge row, tone, and verification gates for steipete/openclaw repos.
• session-viewer: local searchable HTML viewer for agent session JSONL.
• team-handoff: start a seeded worktree session on a shared OpenClaw Gateway as yourself in one request.

Repo-specific product skills should stay in the repo they describe. For example, an acpx usage skill belongs in openclaw/acpx; a general review helper belongs here.

Quick Start

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/agent-skills.git
cd agent-skills

List available skills:

scripts/install-skills --list

Preview an install without changing files:

scripts/install-skills --dry-run

Install all skills into the default agent skill directory:

scripts/install-skills

Install only selected skills:

scripts/install-skills autoreview crabbox

Install somewhere else:

scripts/install-skills --target ~/.codex/skills autoreview

Use copies instead of symlinks:

scripts/install-skills --mode copy --target ~/.agents/skills

Replace an existing installed skill:

scripts/install-skills --force autoreview

Install targets must not contain or sit inside the source skills. The installer checks every selected destination before changing files, including with --force or --dry-run; installing directly over the same source directory is skipped.

Symlinks are best for local development because changes in this checkout are immediately visible. Copies are better for portable or locked-down setups. Node-based skills declare their module format locally, so copied helpers also run inside CommonJS projects without installing dependencies.

Codex And Claude

For Codex, symlink this repo into ~/.codex/skills:

mkdir -p ~/.codex/skills
ln -sfn "$(pwd)/skills" ~/.codex/skills/agent-skills

For Claude Code, symlink this repo into ~/.claude/skills:

mkdir -p ~/.claude
ln -sfn "$(pwd)/skills" ~/.claude/skills

If ~/.claude/skills already points at another shared skills folder, add symlinks inside that folder instead:

ln -sfn "$(pwd)/skills/autoreview" /path/to/shared-skills/autoreview
ln -sfn "$(pwd)/skills/crabbox" /path/to/shared-skills/crabbox

Recommended one-liner for repo AGENTS.md files:

Shared agent workflows: install or symlink https://github.com/openclaw/agent-skills for `autoreview`, `crabbox`, and other common skills. Autoreview uses one shared installation; repository entrypoints refer to it.

Shared Autoreview

Install autoreview once with python3 scripts/install-skills autoreview. The default ~/.agents/skills/autoreview symlink serves every repository. On Windows, use python; add --mode copy if symlinks are unavailable.

Repositories keep only a .agents/skills/autoreview/SKILL.md entrypoint copied from the repository template. Agents read the full installed skill and run its helper from the repository being reviewed. Repo-specific review thresholds and contribution rules stay in that repository. Helpers, fixtures, and their tests stay here.

Contribute shared improvements here first. After active reviews finish, update this checkout once to update every symlinked consumer. Copy-mode installations need python3 scripts/install-skills --mode copy --force autoreview after the source update. Review runs do not download or update code automatically.

Zero-Setup Repos

Some important repos should work for contributors who only cloned that repo and never installed shared skills. Those repos may vendor a generated snapshot under .agents/skills/.

That snapshot is a distribution artifact, not the source of truth:

• edit canonical skills here first
• sync snapshots downstream after review
• keep downstream copies small in number
• add provenance and drift checks when a repo vendors a snapshot

This option does not apply to autoreview, which uses the shared installation above. Vendor other operational skills only when the repo needs them available without setup.

Repository Layout

skills/
  agent-transcript/
    SKILL.md
    scripts/
  autoreview/
    SKILL.md
    scripts/
  behavior-validator/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  beam/
    README.md
    SKILL.md
    references/
    scripts/
  crabbox/
    SKILL.md
  handoff/
    SKILL.md
  session-viewer/
    SKILL.md
    scripts/
scripts/
  install-skills
  validate-skills

Each skill lives in skills// and must contain SKILL.md. Helper scripts belong inside that skill's scripts/ directory.

Validate

Development checks use Python 3.14 and Node.js 26, matching CI. Install the development dependencies once, then run the shared check command:

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
npm ci --ignore-scripts
python scripts/check-skills

The check command runs frontmatter validation, syntax checks, all Python and Node tests, and npm run typecheck for the session viewer. The Node packages are development-only; installed skills do not need npm install. The separate macOS CI job installs a pinned Codex CLI to exercise native sandbox access controls without a reviewer account or provider request.

For a quick frontmatter-only check, run scripts/validate-skills. It checks every skills/*/SKILL.md for YAML frontmatter plus required name and description strings. Frontmatter must be a mapping enclosed by standalone --- lines; trailing spaces or tabs are allowed on the closing line.

Session exports can contain sensitive conversation data. Treat session-viewer HTML as local/private output unless it has been separately redacted and reviewed.

Editing Rules

• Keep descriptions short and useful for routing.
• Keep skill bodies operational rather than essay-like.
• Do not include secrets, private hostnames, private account IDs, or private URLs.
• Prefer helper scripts for repeatable command logic.
• Do not update vendored downstream snapshots by hand. Update this repo, then sync.

See docs/RELEASING.md for the source-release process.

License

MIT.