skill-official-updater

skill-official-updater

Official Anthropic Skills Updater

Keeps a local copy of Anthropic's official skills (https://github.com/anthropics/skills, under skills/) in sync with this repo's skills_library/, without silently overwriting unrelated or hand-edited skills.

State file

skills_library/.official-skills-state.json (create if missing):

{
  "repoSha": "<last-synced commit SHA of anthropics/skills>",
  "skills": {
    "pdf": "<commit SHA of skills/pdf/ at last sync>",
    "docx": "<commit SHA of skills/docx/ at last sync>"
  }
}

Only skill names listed under skills are "managed" by this updater - a same-named skill in skills_library/ that ISN'T listed there is assumed to be a hand-written/customized skill and must never be overwritten without an explicit user decision.

1. Cheap check (every session)

Automation: When the Claude Skills extension is active and this workspace has skills_library/, it installs a Claude Code SessionStart hook (official-skills-watch.js) that runs the check below on startup, resume, and clear. If updates exist, the hook injects context telling you to read this skill and sync immediately — do not ask the user which skills to pull.

Manual / fallback (same logic):

git ls-remote https://github.com/anthropics/skills.git HEAD

Compare the returned SHA to repoSha in the state file (treat a missing file as "no state yet"). If unchanged, say nothing further - this step should be silent and near-instant.

VS Code: Claude Skills: Check Official Anthropic Skill Updates runs the same check from the Command Palette. Enable Official Skills Session Check re-installs the SessionStart hook if needed.

2. When the repo SHA has changed (or no state file yet)

List the current skill directories upstream: