/skill-loader — Discover Local Skills

Triggering Conditions

Use when:

• You need to discover what skills are available in a local collection before selecting which to load for current task
• User asks about available skills, skill collections, or wants to explore custom skill directories
• Query contains /skill-loader, "load skills", "discover skills", or "available skills"
• You're working with custom skill collections stored in specific directories (superpowers, ai-agent-skills, obsidian-skills)

NOT for:

• Reading individual SKILL.md files directly - let the script handle discovery
• Manual directory listing without YAML frontmatter parsing
• Skills outside your configured local collection directories

Trigger

User invokes /skill-loader followed by a skill group name:

/skill-loader superpowers
/skill-loader ai-agent-skills
/skill-loader obsidian-skills

Or naturally without the prefix:

Load skills from the superpowers collection
What skills are available in ai-agent-skills?
Discover what's in my local skill collections

The script looks up the skill group in index.yaml and extracts metadata from all SKILL.md files automatically, outputting results in JSON format by default.

How to Use

Direct Command

python3 scripts/extract_skill_metadata.py <skill-group-name>

Example Output (JSON)

The script outputs available skills in JSON format by default:

[
  {
    "name": "superpowers-tdd",
    "description": "Use when implementing test-driven development workflows",
    "location": "/home/user/skills/superpowers/skills/tdd/SKILL.md",
    "original_name": "tdd"
  },
  {
    "name": "superpowers-planning",
    "description": "Use for systematic project planning and task breakdown",
    "location": "/home/user/skills/superpowers/skills/planning/SKILL.md",
    "original_name": "planning"
  }
]

Skill Discovery

Activation keywords:

• /skill-loader followed by a skill group name
• load skills, discover skills, available skills

Discipline Enforcement Table

Core principle: The script automates what would otherwise be tedious manual discovery. Trust the mechanism.

Common Excuses (and Why They're Wrong)

Pressure Scenarios

Scenario: Agent forgets /skill-loader prefix

Input: "Load skills from superpowers" Expected: Script still runs via extract_skill_metadata.py superpowers

Scenario: index.yaml missing or corrupted

Agent should see clear error message with available groups listed.

Scenario: No SKILL.md files in directory

Output empty JSON array [] instead of failing silently.

Rules

• Output discovered skills in JSON format by default
• Skip the full skill list output to user-facing chat if too verbose (14+ items)
• Run script via python3 scripts/extract_skill_metadata.py <group-name>
• Don't manually parse SKILL.md files - let the script handle YAML extraction