skills

npx tambo skills <subcommand> [options]

Manage project skills directly from the terminal. Skills are markdown files with YAML frontmatter that provide instructions to your AI agent.

Subcommands

list

List all skills in the current project.

npx tambo skills list

Displays a table with each skill's name, description, and enabled status.

add

Create one or more skills from markdown files.

npx tambo skills add <file.md> [file2.md] [...]

Reads each file, parses the YAML frontmatter for name and description, and creates the skill with the file body as instructions.

# Add a single skill
npx tambo skills add my-skill.md

# Add multiple skills at once
npx tambo skills add skill1.md skill2.md skill3.md

If a file has invalid frontmatter or a name conflict, the error is reported and remaining files continue processing.

get

Print a skill as markdown to stdout.

npx tambo skills get <name>

Outputs round-trippable markdown with frontmatter. Pipe to a file to save locally:

npx tambo skills get my-skill > my-skill.md

update

Update one or more existing skills from modified files.

npx tambo skills update <file.md> [file2.md] [...]

Matches each file to an existing skill by the name field in frontmatter, then updates the description and instructions.

# Edit a skill locally, then push changes
npx tambo skills get my-skill > my-skill.md
# ... edit my-skill.md ...
npx tambo skills update my-skill.md

enable

Enable a skill by name.

npx tambo skills enable <name>

If the skill is already enabled, the command exits with no changes.

disable

Disable a skill by name. Disabled skills remain stored but are not passed to the LLM at inference time.

npx tambo skills disable <name>

If the skill is already disabled, the command exits with no changes.

delete

Delete a skill by name.

npx tambo skills delete <name>

Prompts for confirmation in interactive mode. Use --force to skip the prompt:

npx tambo skills delete my-skill --force

Skill file format

Skills use YAML frontmatter with name and description fields, followed by markdown instructions:

---
name: my-skill-name
description: "A brief description of what this skill does"
---

Your instructions go here. Full markdown is supported.

Name requirements:

• Kebab-case only (lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens)
• Maximum 200 characters

Limits:

• Description: 2,000 characters
• Instructions: 100,000 characters

Options

Model Support

Skills require a model that supports the provider's skills API. If your project uses an unsupported model, the CLI displays a warning but still stores the skill. See the Skills concept page for the full list of supported models.

Authentication

All skills commands require:

1. An authenticated session via npx tambo auth login
2. A project API key in .env.local (set up via npx tambo init)

Non-interactive usage

All commands work in CI/CD environments. For delete, pass --force to skip the confirmation prompt:

npx tambo skills delete my-skill --force

Exit codes:

• 0 -- success
• 1 -- error (invalid file, skill not found, auth failure)
• 2 -- user action required (non-interactive mode needs flags)