manage-skills

Before doing anything

1. Resolve the CLI first, then use the path it prints. Run this once (POSIX shell):

   D="$HOME/.skills-manager/bin"
   B="$D/skills-manager-cli"; [ -e "$B" ] || B="$B.exe"   # .exe on Windows
   if [ -s "$D/.version" ] && [ -x "$B" ]; then
     echo "$B"
   elif [ -s "$D/.version" ] || [ -e "$B" ]; then
     echo BRIDGE_BROKEN
   else
     P="$(command -v skills-manager-cli 2>/dev/null || true)"
     [ -x "$P" ] && echo "$P"
   fi
   

   Substitute the printed path into every command below, wherever the examples write $SM. Do not carry $SM as a shell variable: each command you run is a new shell, so an assignment made here is gone by the next one.

   The three outcomes:

   • A path under ~/.skills-manager/bin — the desktop app published this copy, and the .version stamp appears only after it has been verified, so it always matches the app the user is running. Use it.
   • BRIDGE_BROKEN — something the app left behind is here but does not add up: an unstamped binary, or a stamp with no binary beside it. Either is what a copy that failed half-way leaves. Stop. Do not go looking for another CLI: that binary may predate a safety fix, and the machine has a desktop app whose version nothing here can match. Ask the user to open the Skills Manager app once, which republishes it.
   • A path from PATH — nothing was ever published here, so there is no stale copy to worry about: this is a CLI-only machine (a server install, a standalone download, a hand-built binary). Use it, but note it can be older than a desktop app if one is also installed.

   If nothing is printed at all, this skill doesn't apply — fall back to find-skills, or tell the user to install Skills Manager.

2. Always pass --json when you parse output yourself. Pretty-printed output is for the user; JSON is for you. Errors include ok=false, a stable code, and message on stderr with a non-zero exit code.

"$SM" --json skills list

When a deployment is refused

A deploy that would overwrite something that is not ours is refused outright — nothing at those paths is deleted, and nothing else in the batch is applied. That failure is machine-readable, so report the actual paths rather than the sentence: