---

name: update-skills description: Check for and pull updates to shared skills. Handles both project submodules and global standalone clones in ~/.claude/skills/. Use when checking for skill updates, pulling latest versions, or verifying skill health. argument-hint: "[all | skill-name]" allowed-tools:

• Bash
• Read

---

Update Skills

Check for and pull updates to shared skills. Two sources:

1. Project submodules (.claude/skills/ in $CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR): Agent-specific skills tracked as git submodules.
2. Global clones (~/.claude/skills/): Skills shared by all agents, cloned as standalone git repos.

Usage

/update-skills           Check all skills for available updates (both sources)
/update-skills all       Pull all available updates
/update-skills context7  Pull updates for a specific skill (checks both locations)

Step 0: Create Task List

Use TaskCreate to create these tasks:

1. Check global skills for updates
2. Check project submodules for updates
3. Report status
4. Pull updates (if requested)
5. Verify updated versions

Mark each task in_progress when you start it and completed when done.

Procedure

Step 1: Check global skills

for dir in ~/.claude/skills/*/; do
  [ -d "$dir/.git" ] || continue
  name=$(basename "$dir")
  cd "$dir"
  LOCAL=$(git rev-parse HEAD 2>/dev/null)
  git fetch origin --quiet 2>/dev/null
  REMOTE=$(git rev-parse origin/main 2>/dev/null || git rev-parse origin/HEAD 2>/dev/null)
  if [ -z "$REMOTE" ]; then
    echo "UNREACHABLE [global] $name (cannot reach remote)"
  elif [ "$LOCAL" != "$REMOTE" ]; then
    BEHIND=$(git rev-list HEAD..origin/main --count 2>/dev/null || echo "?")
    echo "STALE [global] $name behind=$BEHIND"
  else
    echo "CURRENT [global] $name"
  fi
  cd - > /dev/null
done

Step 2: Check project submodules

cd "$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR"
git submodule foreach --quiet '
  LOCAL=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
  REMOTE=$(git ls-remote origin HEAD 2>/dev/null | cut -f1)
  if [ -z "$REMOTE" ]; then
    echo "UNREACHABLE [project] $name (cannot reach remote)"
  elif [ "$LOCAL" != "$REMOTE" ]; then
    BEHIND=$(git rev-list HEAD..origin/main --count 2>/dev/null || echo "?")
    echo "STALE [project] $name behind=$BEHIND"
  else
    echo "CURRENT [project] $name"
  fi
'

Step 3: Report results

Format the output as a table:

| Source | Skill | Status | Behind | |--------|-------|--------|--------|

• CURRENT: Up to date, no action needed
• STALE: Updates available, show how many commits behind
• UNREACHABLE: Cannot contact remote (network issue or repo moved)

If no argument was provided, stop here (check-only mode). Show the table and ask if the user wants to pull updates.

Step 4: Pull updates (if argument is "all" or a specific skill name)

Global skills:

for dir in ~/.claude/skills/*/; do
  [ -d "$dir/.git" ] || continue
  name=$(basename "$dir")
  cd "$dir"
  git pull --ff-only origin main 2>&1 | grep -v "Already up to date" && echo "Updated [global] $name"
  cd - > /dev/null
done

Project submodules:

cd "$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR"
git submodule update --remote --merge

For a specific skill, check global first, then project:

# Global
if [ -d "$HOME/.claude/skills/SKILL_NAME/.git" ]; then
  cd "$HOME/.claude/skills/SKILL_NAME" && git pull --ff-only origin main
fi

# Project submodule
cd "$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR"
git submodule update --remote --merge .claude/skills/SKILL_NAME 2>/dev/null

Step 5: Verify

After updating, confirm versions:

echo "=== Global Skills ==="
for dir in ~/.claude/skills/*/; do
  [ -d "$dir/.git" ] || continue
  echo "$(basename "$dir"): $(cd "$dir" && git rev-parse --short HEAD)"
done

echo "=== Project Submodules ==="
cd "$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR"
git submodule foreach --quiet 'echo "$name: $(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"'

Report what was updated and the new commit hashes.