Troubleshooting agent-skills
The agent does not see the skills
Section titled “The agent does not see the skills”- Run
agent-skills doctor: it shows which agents were detected and where skills are installed. - Restart the agent or start a new chat; most agents scan skill folders at startup.
- Check the location for your agent in Supported agents. Older versions may need
--format rules. - Codex lists a skill twice: old copies sit in the deprecated
~/.codex/skills.doctorwarns about them; remove them. - Cursor, OpenCode or Copilot list a skill twice in a project: they also read
.claude/skills. Install Claude at user scope and the others at project scope, or the reverse.
agent-skills: command not found
Section titled “agent-skills: command not found”Run npm link in the repository, call node ~/agent-skills/cli/agent-skills.mjs, or link bin/agent-skills into a folder on PATH (ln -s ~/agent-skills/bin/agent-skills ~/.local/bin/). On Windows use bin\agent-skills.cmd.
“exists and was not installed by agent-skills”
Section titled ““exists and was not installed by agent-skills””A file or folder with the same name was already there, so it was left alone. Compare it, then rerun with --force; the old one is moved to <path>.bak-agent-skills.
sync or uninstall skips a copy I edited
Section titled “sync or uninstall skips a copy I edited”On purpose: hand-edited copies are never overwritten or deleted. Keep your edit, or use --force to replace or remove it.
Links on Windows
Section titled “Links on Windows”User-scope installs create folder junctions, which need no administrator rights or developer mode. If a junction cannot be created, for example on some network drives, install with --copy and run agent-skills sync after updates.
WSL and Windows at the same time
Section titled “WSL and Windows at the same time”Each environment has its own home folder and agents. Install in both, from one clone if you like, running agent-skills install inside each environment.
Tracker problems
Section titled “Tracker problems”access denied (HTTP 401/403): a wrong or expired token, or a missing scope.agent-skills tasks checktests every tracker.cannot resolveorno connection: VPN or URL.TLS problem: setNODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTSto your company’s CA certificate.ENG-12 could be Jira or Linear(or Skribly Tracker): addTracker: jira(orlinear,skribly) to.tasks/workflow.md, setAGENT_SKILLS_TRACKER, or pass--tracker.- GitHub without a token: public issues work at 60 requests an hour; private ones need
GITHUB_TOKENorgh auth login.
PageSpeed Insights says HTTP 429
Section titled “PageSpeed Insights says HTTP 429”The keyless quota is shared and often used up. Create an API key for the PageSpeed Insights API and set PSI_API_KEY, or measure locally with --local, which needs Chrome.
Playwright or axe-core is missing
Section titled “Playwright or axe-core is missing”browser-check, wcag-audit and e2e-tests look for Playwright in the project, then globally. Install it only if you want it: npm i -D playwright axe-core && npx playwright install chromium. Without it the skills fall back to manual checklists and say so.
The commit-msg hook did not run
Section titled “The commit-msg hook did not run”- Run
agent-skills hooks statusin that repository. Hooks are per repository. - husky, lefthook and similar tools set
core.hooksPath; add the printed line to theircommit-msghook. nodemust be onPATHfor git. GUI clients sometimes have a minimalPATH.
Does it send my code anywhere?
Section titled “Does it send my code anywhere?”No. The CLI talks only to your tracker (when you fetch, or explicitly post), to OSV.dev or PageSpeed Insights when you run those audits, and to package registries through your own package manager. Nothing else is collected or uploaded.
How do I use it in a team?
Section titled “How do I use it in a team?”Install at project scope (--project .) and commit .claude/skills and .agents/skills, so everyone gets the same skills. .tasks/ stays personal. Put shared conventions (base branch, commit pattern, check commands) in AGENTS.md, and each developer’s .tasks/workflow.md is proposed from them. Each developer installs the commit hook in their own clone.