acquiring-skills

Acquiring New Skills

This skill teaches you how to safely discover and install skills from external sources.

SAFETY - READ THIS FIRST

Skills can contain:

• Markdown files (.md) - Risk: prompt injection, misleading instructions
• Scripts (Python, TypeScript, Bash) - Risk: malicious code execution

Trusted Sources (no user approval needed for download)

• https://github.com/letta-ai/skills - Letta's community skills
• https://github.com/anthropics/skills - Anthropic's official skills

Untrusted Sources (ALWAYS verify with user)

For ANY source other than letta-ai or anthropics:

1. Ask the user before downloading
2. Explain where the skill comes from
3. Get explicit approval

Script Safety

Even for skills from trusted sources, ALWAYS:

1. Read and inspect any scripts before executing them
2. Understand what the script does
3. Be wary of network calls, file operations, or system commands

When to Use This Skill

DO use when:

• User asks for something where a skill likely exists (e.g., "help me test this webapp", "generate a PDF report")
• You think "there's probably a skill that would bootstrap my understanding"
• User explicitly asks about available skills or extending capabilities

DON'T use for:

• General coding tasks you can already handle
• Simple bug fixes or feature implementations
• Tasks where you have sufficient knowledge

Ask Before Searching (Interactive Mode)

If you recognize a task that might have an associated skill, ask the user first:

"This sounds like something where a community skill might help (e.g., webapp testing with Playwright). Would you like me to look for available skills in the Letta or Anthropic repositories? This might take a minute, or I can start coding right away if you prefer."

The user may prefer to start immediately rather than wait for skill discovery.

Only proceed with skill acquisition if the user agrees.

Skill Repositories

Browse these repositories to discover available skills. Check the README for skill listings.

Installation Locations

Rule: If useful across multiple projects, install globally. If project-specific, install in .skills/.

How to Download Skills

Skills are directories containing SKILL.md and optionally scripts/, references/, examples/.

Method: Clone to /tmp, then copy

# 1. Clone the repo (shallow)
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/skills /tmp/skills-temp

# 2. Copy the skill to your skills directory
# For global:
cp -r /tmp/skills-temp/skills/webapp-testing ~/.letta/skills/
# For project:
cp -r /tmp/skills-temp/skills/webapp-testing .skills/

# 3. Cleanup
rm -rf /tmp/skills-temp

Alternative: rsync (preserves permissions)

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/skills /tmp/skills-temp
rsync -av /tmp/skills-temp/skills/webapp-testing/ ~/.letta/skills/webapp-testing/
rm -rf /tmp/skills-temp

Registering New Skills

After downloading, refresh the skills list:

Skill(command: "refresh")

This scans ~/.letta/skills/ and .skills/ and updates your skills memory block.

Complete Example

User asks: "Can you help me test my React app's UI?"

1. Recognize opportunity: Browser/webapp testing - likely has a skill
2. Ask user: "Would you like me to look for webapp testing skills, or start coding right away?"
3. If user agrees, find skill: Check anthropics/skills for webapp-testing
4. Download (trusted source):

   git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/skills /tmp/skills-temp
   cp -r /tmp/skills-temp/skills/webapp-testing ~/.letta/skills/
   rm -rf /tmp/skills-temp
   

5. Refresh: Skill(command: "refresh")
6. Inspect scripts: Read any .py or .ts files before using them
7. Load: Skill(command: "load", skills: ["webapp-testing"])
8. Use: Follow the skill's instructions for the user's task