Support nested skill discovery without skills directories by tommaso-moro · Pull Request #13894 · cli/cli

tommaso-moro · 2026-07-16T10:38:21Z

Fixes #13876

Summary

Discover skills from SKILL.md files whose parent directories appear at arbitrary non-hidden repository depths, without requiring a skills/ directory.
Preserve existing precedence and behavior for standard, namespaced, plugin, root, and hidden-directory conventions.
Keep install, preview, update, search, and publish behavior consistent through the shared discovery matcher.
Preserve exact repository paths in search and installation so duplicate leaf names remain distinguishable and cannot install the wrong skill.
Update command help and discovery errors to describe the supported layouts.

API request impact

Repository discovery still uses one recursive tree request, regardless of how many layouts match.
GitHub Code Search request counts are unchanged.
Broader matching can retain more search candidates, which may increase ordinary REST requests for SKILL.md descriptions and repository metadata. Enrichment remains capped at page * limit * 3 candidates (45 with the default first page).

Testing

go test ./...
make
golangci-lint run --new-from-rev=origin/trunk ./...
gh skill install android/skills r8-analyzer --dir <temp-dir>

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

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Pull request overview

This pull request updates gh skills discovery and related command flows to support repositories where SKILL.md files live in arbitrarily nested, non-hidden directories (without requiring a skills/ directory), while preserving existing conventions (namespaced, plugins, root, hidden dirs) and ensuring installations/search results remain unambiguous when duplicate leaf names exist.

Changes:

Expand skill discovery to match nested <category>/<skill>/SKILL.md layouts and update “no skills found” messaging accordingly.
Preserve exact repository paths through search result deduplication and installation, and disambiguate duplicates in interactive prompts/errors.
Add/adjust tests for nested discovery, ambiguity handling, and installation argument behavior.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
pkg/cmd/skills/search/search.go	Pass exact `SKILL.md` paths through install-from-search and improve interactive disambiguation for duplicate names.
pkg/cmd/skills/search/search_test.go	Add coverage for path-preserving deduplication, prompt disambiguation, and install subprocess argument formation.
pkg/cmd/skills/publish/publish.go	Update help text to reflect expanded discovery layouts.
pkg/cmd/skills/install/install.go	Improve ambiguity handling and path-based selection/redirect behavior for nested skills.
pkg/cmd/skills/install/install_test.go	Add coverage for nested installs, ambiguity errors, exact-path selection, and upstream redirects using stored metadata paths.
internal/skills/discovery/discovery.go	Expand matcher to treat non-hidden nested `SKILL.md` as skills and update discovery error messages; improve convention detection for exact-path lookups.
internal/skills/discovery/discovery_test.go	Add coverage for nested matching, hidden exclusions, and nested discovery in remote/local scenarios.

Review details

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Files reviewed: 7/7 changed files
Comments generated: 2
Review effort level: Low

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Copilot-Session: ccf2a058-7f75-4f53-a39d-dc9225ef5c85

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Copilot review overview

🟡 Changes recommended

Root-level discovery, duplicate-path handling, preview ambiguity, and ref parsing remain unresolved.

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Review effort: Balanced
Findings: 1 · 2

Open (3)

Root-level SKILL.md is not discovered by the matcher · New
Preview silently selects the first skill with duplicate names · New
Share selector parsing while preserving slash-containing refs · New

Resolved since last review (2)

The --pin vs inline @version check treats any '@' in the selector as an inline version. This…
This help text says "<skill>/SKILL.md in any non-hidden directory", but discovery intentionally…

+	if !hasHiddenSegment(entry.Path) && !hasPluginsAncestor(entry.Path) && skillName != "skills" && skillName != "plugins" {
+		convention := "nested"
+		if parentDir == "." {
+			convention = "root"
+		}
+		return &skillMatch{entry: entry, name: skillName, skillDir: dir, convention: convention}


+	if !hasHiddenSegment(entry.Path) && !hasPluginsAncestor(entry.Path) && skillName != "skills" && skillName != "plugins" {
+		convention := "nested"
+		if parentDir == "." {
+			convention = "root"
+		}
+		return &skillMatch{entry: entry, name: skillName, skillDir: dir, convention: convention}


+func cutSkillVersion(s string) (name, version string, found bool) {
+	if i := strings.LastIndex(s, "@"); i > 0 {
+		version = s[i+1:]
+		if version != "" && !strings.Contains(version, "/") {
+			return s[:i], version, true


BagToad · 2026-09-23T21:49:50Z

👋 moving this to draft to represent state w/ new copilot review instructions, please mark ready for review when addressed 🙏

joshuamking · 2026-10-22T17:51:39Z

@tommaso-moro
I would love this for being able to keep my android/skills updated as they make changes.
Are there any blockers to getting this across the line?
So far, I love the way gh skill has been working!

dl909-A

Yes

tommaso-moro and others added 2 commits July 16, 2026 11:37

Support nested skill discovery without skills directory

cc07fb8

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

Preserve exact paths for nested skill installs

b401b53

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

tommaso-moro marked this pull request as ready for review July 17, 2026 09:59

tommaso-moro requested review from a team as code owners July 17, 2026 09:59

tommaso-moro requested review from babakks and Copilot July 17, 2026 09:59

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of tommaso-moro July 17, 2026 09:59

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Copilot AI reviewed Jul 17, 2026

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Comment thread pkg/cmd/skills/install/install.go Resolved

Comment thread pkg/cmd/skills/publish/publish.go Resolved

Address skill discovery review feedback

a8a3b42

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tommaso-moro requested review from a team as code owners July 31, 2026 08:57

Merge trunk into nested skill discovery

8f44336

Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Copilot-Session: ccf2a058-7f75-4f53-a39d-dc9225ef5c85

tommaso-moro force-pushed the tommaso-moro-skill-install-nested-discovery branch from 3288946 to 8f44336 Compare July 31, 2026 09:22

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cli blocked adityanb14-max Aug 24, 2026

BagToad requested a balanced review from Copilot September 23, 2026 21:43

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BagToad marked this pull request as draft September 23, 2026 21:49

kimjooyoon mentioned this pull request Oct 17, 2026

gh skill search: opt-in discovery of supported hidden skill directories #14733

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dl909-A reviewed Oct 23, 2026

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Support nested skill discovery without skills directories - #13894

Support nested skill discovery without skills directories#13894
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tommaso-moro commented Jul 16, 2026 •

edited

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tommaso-moro commented Jul 16, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Summary

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🟡 Changes recommended

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tommaso-moro commented Jul 16, 2026 •

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