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Skills

As of aibox v0.16.0, skills are no longer bundled with aibox. They live in processkit — a separate, versioned content repository that ships skills, primitives, processes, packages, and the canonical AGENTS.md template.

aibox owns the container (devcontainers, addons, the CLI, the install/apply machinery). processkit owns the content (skills, packages, processes, state machines). The boundary is deliberate and load-bearing: it lets the two projects move at their own velocity without dragging each other through breaking changes.

Where skills land in your project

After running aibox init and aibox apply in your project, processkit content is materialised under your context/ directory:

context/
├── skills/ # Active, editable skill copies
└── templates/
└── processkit/
└── v0.26.15/ # Immutable upstream snapshot, git-tracked
├── context/
│ └── skills/
├── .processkit/
└── AGENTS.md

The version in the path (v0.26.15) is whatever you pinned in aibox.toml:

[processkit]
source = "https://github.com/projectious-work/processkit.git"
version = "v0.26.15"

The context/skills/ copies are yours to edit. The context/templates/processkit/<version>/ copies are the immutable upstream snapshot — aibox apply uses them as the base side of a three-way diff to detect upstream changes that should be pulled into your local edits.

Skill catalogue and documentation

processkit documentation is not yet deployed as a standalone site. Until then, browse the upstream source directly:

Every skill is a directory with at least a SKILL.md (the agent-readable instructions) and may include references/, mcp/, assets/, and scripts/ siblings. Skills follow the open Agent Skills specification.

Browsing installed skills

aibox get skill # list installed skills, grouped by category
aibox get skill --all # include available-but-not-installed skills
aibox get skill --category ai # filter by category
aibox describe skill <name> # frontmatter + description for one skill

Skill Selection

New projects list the standard processkit operating skills explicitly in [skills].enabled. Use [skills].enabled and [skills].disabled for skill-level overrides:

[skills]
enabled = [
"pk-doctor",
"status-briefing",
]
disabled = [
# "skill-to-omit",
]

Legacy package selections are still accepted for compatibility, but new aibox.toml files use explicit skill selection as the primary control surface.

Custom skills

To add a project-specific skill, drop a directory under context/skills/:

context/skills/my-custom-skill/
└── SKILL.md

Local skills are not touched by aibox apply. They are also not part of any processkit package — they exist purely for the local project.

Core skills

Some processkit skills carry metadata.processkit.core: true in their frontmatter (e.g. skill-finder). Core skills are installed regardless of any [skills].include / [skills].exclude configuration. aibox doctor warns if you attempt to exclude a core skill.

Why this split?

  • Independent release cadence. processkit can ship a new skill or fix a prompt without forcing an aibox CLI release.
  • Reusable content. Other tools can consume processkit directly without taking a dependency on aibox or its container stack.
  • Forkable content. A team can fork processkit, point [processkit].source at the fork, and ship a private skill catalogue without forking aibox itself.
  • Smaller aibox. The aibox binary stays focused on container lifecycle and the install/diff/migrate machinery.

See [processkit] configuration for the full set of fields, including release-asset URL templates and SHA256 verification.