canhelp - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: canhelp description: Display a human-readable summary of a canister's interface given its mainnet canister ID or a human-readable name. Like --help but for canisters. Only for mainnet canisters — for local canisters, read the generated .did file in your project directly. license: Apache-2.0 compatibility: "icp-cli >= 0.1.0" allowed-tools: Bash(./scripts/resolve-canister-id.sh ), Bash(./scripts/fetch-candid.sh ), Read, Grep, Glob argument-hint: metadata: title: Canister Help category: Infrastructure

Given a canister ID or name in $ARGUMENTS, fetch and summarize its Candid interface.

Resolve the canister ID by running the resolve script from the skill's base directory:
```
./scripts/resolve-canister-id.sh "$ARGUMENTS"
```
If $ARGUMENTS is already a valid principal, the script echoes it back. Otherwise, it queries the IC Dashboard API and outputs matches as <canister-id> <name> (one per line).
- If there is a single result, clearly display the resolved canister ID and use it directly.
- If there are multiple results, present the list to the user and ask them to pick one before continuing.
Fetch the Candid interface using the resolved canister ID:
```
./scripts/fetch-candid.sh <resolved-canister-id>
```
The script outputs the path to the downloaded .did file.
Read the file using the Read tool.
Present the output as a readable summary with the following structure:

Canister <canister-id>

Query methods:
- method_name(arg1: type1, arg2: type2) → return_type — one-line description if inferable from the name
Update methods:
- method_name(arg1: type1) → return_type
Types:
- List any custom record/variant types defined in the interface, with their fields

Group methods by query vs update
Sort methods alphabetically within each group
For complex nested types, show the top-level structure and note nesting
If the candid is very large (>100 methods), show a summary count and list only the most important-looking methods, offering to show the full list on request
If the fetch succeeds, but the Candid interface is empty,explain that the canister is not exposing its Candid interface in the wasm metadata
If the fetch fails, suggest the user verify the canister ID and that icp is installed