ha-find-skills

name: ha-find-skills description: "Discover and install third-party skills from external registries when the user needs a capability that no currently-active skill covers. Trigger when: (1) the user explicitly asks 'find a skill for X', 'is there a skill that does X', 'install a skill to X', (2) the user requests a well-known integration (Slack, Notion, Trello, GitHub, Hue, Sonos, iMessage, weather, TTS, transcription …) that isn't in the active skill catalog, (3) you are about to hand-write ad-hoc shell / API code for a domain that almost certainly has a published skill. Do NOT trigger if an active skill already covers the need — scan the visible skill catalog first." always: true

Find Skills

Hope Agent can load skills from multiple sources. When the user needs a capability the active catalog doesn't cover, this workflow finds a candidate on a public registry, confirms with the user, and installs it into ~/.hope-agent/skills/ so it's picked up on next prompt rebuild.

Before searching — check what's already there

Look at the active skill catalog in the current system prompt. Many needs (notes, reminders, weather, TTS, GitHub, Slack, …) may already be covered by a bundled or user-installed skill.
If anything plausibly matches, invoke it instead — don't reinstall.
Only proceed to external search when the gap is real.

Search — pick the first available source

Registries are checked in order; use the first one whose CLI is installed. If none is installed, fall back to source 3.

1. ClawHub (`clawhub` CLI, registry: clawhub.com)

clawhub --version            # detect
clawhub search "<query>"     # keyword search

Install flow:

clawhub install <slug> --dir ~/.hope-agent/skills

2. Skillhub (`skillhub` CLI, Tencent-CDN registry — better for users in China)

skillhub --version           # detect
skillhub search "<query>"
skillhub install <slug>      # installs to current workspace ./skills by default

After skillhub install, if the slug landed under ./skills/<name>/, move it to ~/.hope-agent/skills/<name>/ so Hope Agent's extra_skills_dir picks it up.

3. GitHub code search (fallback, no CLI required)

Use gh (already available on most machines) to search public repos for SKILL.md files:

gh api -X GET search/code \
  -f q='filename:SKILL.md "<keyword>"' \
  --jq '.items[] | {repo: .repository.full_name, path: .path, url: .html_url}' \
  | head -20

For promising hits, fetch the raw SKILL.md to read the frontmatter (name, description, license) before recommending.

Quality gate — before recommending

Every candidate must pass:

License present and permissive (MIT / Apache-2.0 / BSD / ISC / CC-BY). If the repo has no LICENSE file, flag it — user decides whether to accept the legal gray area.
SKILL.md frontmatter parses cleanly (name + description minimum).
No obvious red flags in bundled scripts: curl … | sh, network calls to unknown hosts, credential harvesting patterns. Skim scripts before install.
Install count / stars if the registry exposes them (clawhub search prints installs): prefer >1k installs or >50 stars.

Install — always confirm with the user first

This is a HIGH-risk operation (arbitrary third-party code joins the agent's toolchain). Workflow:

Present top 1–3 candidates to the user with: name, one-line description, source URL, license, install count / stars.
Ask explicitly: "Install <slug> from <source>? This adds it to ~/.hope-agent/skills/<name>/ and runs on future turns."
Only after explicit "yes" / "go ahead":
- Run the registry CLI install, or git clone the repo into ~/.hope-agent/skills/<slug>/.
- If the skill's frontmatter declares metadata.openclaw.install or metadata.hope-agent.install with bins:, those dependencies need separate install (via brew/npm/go/uv) — Hope Agent's Skills panel has an "Install dependency" button, or use ha-settings to toggle allow_remote_install for HTTP-mode users.
Verify install: ls ~/.hope-agent/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md — confirm the file exists.

Post-install

Tell the user:

Installed <slug> into ~/.hope-agent/skills/<slug>/. It will appear in the skill catalog on the next turn / conversation. Open Settings → Skills to review, or disable it if unwanted.

The catalog rebuilds automatically when the cache version bumps (add/remove/toggle triggers a bump). If the user doesn't see the new skill in the next turn, ask them to toggle it in Settings → Skills, which forces a refresh.

What this skill will NOT do

It won't install skill dependencies (brew / npm / go binaries) silently — those require explicit user consent via the Skills panel or ha-settings.
It won't touch bundled skills (skills/ in the app install) — those are vendored and versioned with the release.
It won't delete installed skills. Use Settings → Skills or tell the user to rm -rf ~/.hope-agent/skills/<slug>/.

Credits

Design inspired by vercel-labs/skills#find-skills, which popularised the "agent finds its own skills" pattern. ClawHub (MIT, openclaw/clawhub) and Skillhub (Tencent-COS installer) are the two registries this workflow speaks to; neither source file has been vendored — the CLI usage documented above is factual interoperation notes.