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From Existing Skills

Migrate your existing skills from various AI CLIs to skillshare.

Overview​

If you already have skills in ~/.claude/skills/, ~/.cursor/skills/, or other locations, skillshare can consolidate them into a single source.

Starting Scenarios​

Your situationWhat to do
Skills in one CLI (e.g., Claude)skillshare init --copy-from claude copies them to source
Skills in multiple CLIsInit, then skillshare collect --all to gather from all targets
Skills in a git repo alreadyskillshare init --remote <url> connects to it
BEFORE:                              AFTER:
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
~/.claude/skills/                    Source (single truth)
  ├── skill-a/                       ~/.config/skillshare/skills/
  └── skill-b/                         ├── skill-a/
                                       ├── skill-b/
~/.cursor/skills/                      ├── skill-c/
  ├── skill-b/  (duplicate!)           └── skill-d/
  └── skill-c/
                                     Targets (symlinked)
~/.codex/skills/                     ~/.claude/skills/ → source
  └── skill-d/                       ~/.cursor/skills/ → source
                                     ~/.codex/skills/  → source

Step 1: Initialize skillshare​

skillshare init

Step 2: Backup your existing skills​

Before collecting, create backups:

skillshare backup

Step 3: Collect from each target​

Collect skills from each AI CLI to your source:

# Collect from Claude
skillshare collect claude

# Collect from Cursor
skillshare collect cursor

# Or collect from all at once
skillshare collect --all

What happens:

  1. Local skills (non-symlinked) are copied to source (.git/ directories are excluded)
  2. Original files are replaced with symlinks
  3. Duplicates are detected and reported

Step 4: Handle duplicates​

If you have the same skill in multiple locations, collect will warn you:

Warning: skill-b exists in source
  Source:  ~/.config/skillshare/skills/skill-b/
  Skipped: ~/.cursor/skills/skill-b/

Options:

  • Keep the source version (default)
  • Manually merge differences
  • Use --force to overwrite

Step 5: Sync to all targets​

skillshare sync

Now all targets are symlinked to your single source.

For cross-machine sync:

skillshare init --remote [email protected]:you/my-skills.git
skillshare push -m "Initial commit: migrated skills"

This initializes git, creates the initial commit, and adds the remote. Then push sends your skills to the remote.

Verify Migration​

# Check sync status
skillshare status

# List all skills
skillshare list

# Run diagnostics
skillshare doctor

Rollback​

If something goes wrong:

# Restore from backup
skillshare restore claude
skillshare restore cursor

See Also​