Start with Skillset

Guides authors from a first Skillset build through adoption, daily work, and deliberate shipping workflows.

Skillset’s author journey is Start → Adopt → Work → Ship. Follow it in order for a first repository, or jump to the stage that matches the outcome you need.

Start

Build one small, reviewable projection from canonical source.

1. Install Skillset — choose the native global, Homebrew, GitHub asset, Bun, CI, local dependency, or contributor route with exact runtime requirements.
2. Quickstart — initialize a repository, author one skill, and verify generated output.
3. First-author walkthrough — inspect and modify the executable examples/first-author fixture.
4. How rendering works — understand source, targets, destinations, locks, and drift.
5. Build versus activation — keep repository generation separate from runtime authority.

Adopt

Bring existing provider-native work into Skillset source without overwriting it silently.

• Importing existing work covers repository surveys, selected imports, previews, and review boundaries.

Work

Keep source and generated output current while you edit.

• Development loop covers check, preview, write, watch, inspect, and commit.
• Troubleshooting starts from observable symptoms when that loop fails.

Ship

Shipping is a set of explicit workflows, not a side effect of build. The Ship guides cover:

1. Continuous integration — make source, generated output, and release intent reviewable in hosted checks.
2. Publishing — release source units and choose the correct external publication boundary.
3. Marketplaces — verify curated plugin entries and write supported provider catalog indexes.

Skillset renders files. It does not install, trust, activate, symlink, or mutate user-level provider configuration. See Build Versus Activation.