skills.*

Skill methods manage the Skill System v2 — a unified framework for skill discovery, registration, and lifecycle management. Skills add tools, prompts, and capabilities to agents.

Note: skills.* is one of the per-kind backends behind the unified extensions.* façade. For everyday users, Skills, Plugins, and MCP servers are unified under one Extension concept, browsed and installed via the Extensions Store. The skills.* methods below remain the low-level skill backend; see extensions.* for the umbrella RPC.

Methods

skills.status

Return the full status of all registered skills, including their enabled state, scope, and dependencies.

Request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "skills.status",
  "params": {}
}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "skills": [
      {
        "id": "builtin:shell",
        "name": "Shell Execution",
        "enabled": true,
        "scope": "tool",
        "version": "1.0.0",
        "dependencies": []
      },
      {
        "id": "user:web_search",
        "name": "Web Search",
        "enabled": true,
        "scope": "tool",
        "version": "2.1.0",
        "dependencies": ["builtin:http"]
      }
    ]
  }
}

skills.update

Update a skill's configuration (enabled state and/or prompt scope).

Request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 2,
  "method": "skills.update",
  "params": {
    "skill_id": "user:web_search",
    "enabled": false,
    "scope": "disabled"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 2,
  "result": {
    "skill": {
      "id": "user:web_search",
      "name": "Web Search",
      "enabled": false,
      "scope": "disabled",
      "version": "2.1.0"
    }
  }
}

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`skill_id`	string	Yes	Skill ID to update
`enabled`	boolean	No	Enable or disable the skill
`scope`	string	No	Prompt scope: `"system"`, `"tool"`, `"standalone"`, `"disabled"`

Scope Values:

Scope	Description
`system`	Injected into system prompt
`tool`	Available as callable tool
`standalone`	Used independently of agents
`disabled`	Not loaded

skills.install_dep

Install a dependency for a skill (e.g., a system package required by the skill).

Request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 3,
  "method": "skills.install_dep",
  "params": {
    "skill_id": "user:web_search",
    "spec_id": "curl"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 3,
  "result": {
    "result": "installed",
    "skill": {
      "id": "user:web_search",
      "name": "Web Search",
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`skill_id`	string	Yes	Skill ID
`spec_id`	string	No	Dependency specification ID (e.g., package name)

skills.remove

Remove a skill from the system.

Request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 4,
  "method": "skills.remove",
  "params": {
    "skill_id": "user:web_search"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 4,
  "result": {
    "ok": true
  }
}

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`skill_id`	string	Yes	Skill ID to remove

skills.install

Install a skill from a markdown skill file or directory.

Request:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 5,
  "method": "skills.install",
  "params": {
    "path": "~/.aleph/skills/custom_skill.md"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 5,
  "result": {
    "installed": true,
    "skill_id": "user:custom_skill"
  }
}

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`path`	string	Yes	Path to the skill file or directory

Skill Directories

Skills are loaded from the following directories (in order):

~/.aleph/skills/ — User-installed skills
./skills/ — Project-local skills
Built-in skills bundled with Aleph

skills.*

Methods

skills.status

skills.update

skills.install_dep

skills.remove

skills.install

Skill Directories

See Also

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