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A skill is a reusable capability defined in a SKILL.md file (and any supporting files in the same directory). Coding agents pick up skills from a known directory on disk, .claude/skills, .cursor/skills, .github/skills, and so on. gaal’s job is to take a single skill source and install it into the right directory for every agent you target.

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Why skills are interesting

Each agent has its own skill convention, but the content is portable. A code-review skill written for Claude Code works in Cursor, Codex, and Copilot with no changes. Without gaal you copy the directory three times. With gaal you write one entry and let the renderers fan it out.

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Sources

A skill source can be any of:
Source formatExample
GitHub shorthandanthropics/skills
Full HTTPS URLhttps://github.com/anthropics/skills
Git SSH URLgit@github.com:anthropics/skills.git
Local path./company-skills or ~/my-skills
A source can contain one or many skills. Each top-level directory inside the source that contains a SKILL.md is one skill.

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Targeting agents

Every skill entry says which agents to install it for: 
skills:
  - source: anthropics/skills
    agents: ["*"]                     # every detected agent

  - source: vercel-labs/agent-skills
    agents: [claude-code, cursor]     # explicit list
["*"] is a wildcard that resolves at sync time to the agents currently installed on this machine. Agents that aren’t installed are skipped. Use gaal sync --force to install into every registered agent regardless of whether the agent is detected.

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Project vs global

Each entry chooses one of two install layouts: 
skills:
  - source: anthropics/skills
    agents: ["*"]
    global: false        # default, installs into ./<agent>/skills
  - source: my-utils
    agents: [claude-code]
    global: true         # installs into ~/.<agent>/skills
globalWhere skills are installed
false (default)Per-project: ./.claude/skills/<skill>, ./.cursor/skills/<skill>, …
truePer-user: ~/.claude/skills/<skill>, ~/.cursor/skills/<skill>, …
Use project for skills tied to one repo (CI helpers, codebase-specific reviewers). Use global for skills you want available everywhere (your personal git-helper, formatting preferences).

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Selecting a subset

By default every skill in the source is installed. Use select: to install only specific ones: 
skills:
  - source: anthropics/skills
    agents: [claude-code, github-copilot]
    select:
      - frontend-design
      - skill-creator
The names must match the skill’s directory name in the source.

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What gets written where

For every (source × agent) pair, gaal writes the selected skills under the agent’s skills directory using the agent’s native layout. For example, with this entry: 
- source: anthropics/skills
  agents: [claude-code, cursor]
  select: [frontend-design]
  global: false
gaal writes: 
./.claude/skills/frontend-design/SKILL.md
./.claude/skills/frontend-design/...
./.cursor/skills/frontend-design/SKILL.md
./.cursor/skills/frontend-design/...
See Agent integrations for the exact path used by each agent.

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Behaviour during sync

  • Skills already at the right version are reported = unchanged.
  • New skills are added.
  • Skills that are no longer in the config are left alone unless you pass --prune.
  • Sources are fetched once per sync and reused across all agents that target them.

Configure skills

Agent integrations

Pruning

Schema: skills