SWE CLI Skills

man pages for machines — Your agent knows the commands. We teach it the workflows.

This skill provides expert-level CLI knowledge for the tools software engineers use daily. Each guide encodes senior engineer judgment — not reference docs, but operational workflows, safety guardrails, flag gotchas, error recovery, and composition patterns.

When to Use This Skill

Load a specific CLI guide when:

• You need to run complex CLI operations (multi-step workflows, piped commands)
• You're unsure about flag ordering, safety checks, or non-interactive alternatives
• You encounter a CLI error and need the actual fix (not generic advice)
• You need to compose multiple CLIs together (e.g., aws → jq → xargs)

Available CLI Guides

Guides are organized by category. Read the category index or jump directly to a CLI guide.

☁️ Cloud (skills/cloud/)

🏗️ Infrastructure as Code (skills/iac/)

🐳 Containers & Orchestration (skills/containers/)

🔀 Git & Version Control (skills/git-vcs/)

🛠️ Dev Tools (skills/dev-tools/)

📦 Package Managers (skills/package-managers/)

🗄️ Databases (skills/databases/)

🚀 Platforms & Services (skills/platforms/)

Quick Reference: Critical Gotchas

These are the highest-impact mistakes — check the full guide for details:

• AWS S3: --exclude must come BEFORE --include (left-to-right evaluation)
• Terraform: Always terraform plan after terraform import (detects drift)
• Docker: Copy dependency files before source code (cache optimization)
• kubectl: ALWAYS verify kubectl config current-context before apply
• Helm: helm upgrade RESETS values not specified — use --reuse-values
• Git: Use git --no-pager and --no-edit flags (agents have no TTY)
• SSH: Use BatchMode=yes to prevent password prompt hangs
• psql: Always use -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 in scripts (psql continues after errors by default)
• Redis: NEVER use KEYS * in production — use SCAN instead (blocks server)
• gcloud: Always set --project explicitly in automation (don't rely on default project)
• npm: Use npm ci in CI/CD, not npm install (ensures reproducible builds)
• sed: sed -i behaves differently on macOS vs Linux — use -i.bak for portability
• make: Indentation MUST be real tabs, not spaces (invisible error)
• Stripe: stripe listen webhook secret changes on every restart — update your env var
• Sentry: Sourcemap --url-prefix must exactly match browser request paths
• Vercel: vercel without --prod deploys to preview, not production
• Firebase: firebase deploy without --only deploys EVERYTHING

Token Efficiency

This skill uses a category sub-index architecture. Instead of loading all CLI guides at once:

1. Read this root SKILL.md to find the right category
2. Read only the specific CLI guide you need (e.g., skills/cloud/aws.md)

This keeps token usage minimal — load one guide (~200-400 lines) instead of the entire library.

Each Guide Contains

1. Setup & Auth — Installation and credential configuration
2. Core Workflows — The 20% of commands covering 80% of usage
3. Flag Gotchas — Ordering traps, version quirks, surprising defaults
4. Error Patterns — Real error messages → real fixes
5. Anti-Patterns — "Never do X because Y" with safe alternatives
6. Composability — How to pipe this CLI with others
7. Agent Constraints — Non-interactive alternatives, TTY workarounds