/install-skill - Install Generated Skills or Agents
Step-by-step guide to install your generated skills and agents to the correct locations.
Usage
/install-skill [path-to-skill]
/install-skill [path-to-agent]
What This Command Does
Provides step-by-step installation instructions for:
- Claude Skills →
~/.claude/skills/or Claude Desktop import - Claude Agents →
.claude/agents/(project) or~/.claude/agents/(user-level)
Shows multiple installation methods and helps choose the best one.
Install a Skill
/install-skill generated-skills/my-skill
Output:
Installing: my-skill
You have 3 installation options:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Option 1: Claude Desktop (Easiest)
1. Locate ZIP file:
generated-skills/my-skill.zip
2. Open Claude Desktop app
3. Drag and drop the ZIP file into Claude
4. Skill will load automatically!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Option 2: Claude Code (User-level)
Available across ALL your Claude Code projects:
```bash
# Copy skill folder
cp -r generated-skills/my-skill ~/.claude/skills/
# Verify installation
ls ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/
# Restart Claude Code (if currently running)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Option 3: Claude Apps (Browser)
- Go to Claude.ai
- Enable Skills (Settings → Features)
- Use the "skill-creator" skill
- Import the ZIP file
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Which option? (1, 2, or 3): ___
**After user chooses**, provide detailed steps for that option.
---
## Install an Agent
/install-skill .claude/agents/my-agent
(Note: Works for both skills and agents despite command name)
**Output**:
Installing: my-agent.md (Claude Code Agent)
You have 2 installation options:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Option 1: Project-level (This project only)
Available only in the claude-code-skills-factory project:
# File already in correct location!
.claude/agents/my-agent.md
# Restart Claude Code to load
# Agent will auto-invoke when relevant tasks detected
✅ Recommended if: Agent is specific to this factory project
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Option 2: User-level (All projects)
Available across ALL your Claude Code projects:
# Copy to user-level location
cp .claude/agents/my-agent.md ~/.claude/agents/
# Verify installation
ls ~/.claude/agents/my-agent.md
# Restart Claude Code
✅ Recommended if: Agent is useful across multiple projects
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Which option? (1 or 2): ___
---
## Automatic Detection
**If path contains "skills"**:
→ Provides skill installation instructions (3 options)
**If path contains "agents"**:
→ Provides agent installation instructions (2 options)
**If unclear**:
What type of output are you installing?
- Claude Skill (folder with SKILL.md, goes to ~/.claude/skills/)
- Claude Agent (single .md file, goes to .claude/agents/ or ~/.claude/agents/)
Your choice: ___
---
## Verification Steps
**After installation**, the command helps verify:
**For Skills**:
```bash
# Check skill installed
ls ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/
# Verify SKILL.md
head -10 ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md
# In Claude Desktop: Skills menu should show "my-skill"
For Agents:
# Check agent installed
ls .claude/agents/my-agent.md
# or
ls ~/.claude/agents/my-agent.md
# In Claude Code: Run /agents
# Should list "my-agent" in available agents
Common Installation Paths
Claude Skills:
- User-level:
~/.claude/skills/[skill-name]/ - Desktop: Import ZIP via drag-and-drop
- Browser: Use skill-creator
Claude Agents:
- Project-level:
.claude/agents/[agent-name].md - User-level:
~/.claude/agents/[agent-name].md
Examples
After Building a Healthcare Skill
# 1. Build
/build skill
[Answer questions about healthcare data analysis]
[Skill generated: generated-skills/healthcare-analyzer/]
# 2. Validate
/validate-output skill generated-skills/healthcare-analyzer
✅ Validation passed
# 3. Install
/install-skill generated-skills/healthcare-analyzer
Choose Option 2 (Claude Code user-level)
[Follow provided commands]
# 4. Verify
ls ~/.claude/skills/healthcare-analyzer/
✅ Installed
After Building a Code Reviewer Agent
# 1. Build
/build agent
[Answer questions about code review]
[Agent generated: .claude/agents/code-reviewer.md]
# 2. Validate
/validate-agent .claude/agents/code-reviewer
✅ Validation passed
# 3. Install
/install-skill .claude/agents/code-reviewer
Choose Option 1 (Project-level, already in place)
[Just restart Claude Code]
# 4. Verify
/agents
✅ "code-reviewer" listed
Troubleshooting
"Skill not loading after installation":
- Restart Claude Code or Claude Desktop
- Check file is in correct location
- Verify YAML frontmatter is valid (/validate-output first)
"Agent not auto-invoking":
- Check /agents to see if it's listed
- Verify description is specific enough
- Try manual invocation: "Use the [agent-name] agent to..."
"ZIP import failing":
- Verify ZIP file exists and isn't corrupted
- Re-create ZIP if needed:
cd generated-skills zip -r my-skill.zip my-skill/
Tips
Before Installing:
- ✅ Always run /validate-output first
- ✅ Fix any validation errors
- ✅ Test locally if possible
After Installing:
- ✅ Restart Claude Code/Desktop
- ✅ Test with simple invocation
- ✅ Share with team (if useful)
For Skills:
- Desktop: Easiest (drag-and-drop)
- Code: Most flexible (edit files directly)
- Browser: Good for quick sharing
For Agents:
- Project-level: If agent is project-specific
- User-level: If agent is useful everywhere
Related Commands
/build- Generate skills/prompts/agents first/validate-output- Validate before installing/test-factory- Test after installing/factory-status- See installation status
Make installation easy and error-free! 📦