Installing and tuning the skills

All flags of tvbo skills install / uninstall

This page assumes you’ve read the overview or beginner walkthrough and want the full installation surface.

The full command

tvbo skills install
    --target {claude-code,copilot,cursor,agents-md,prompt,all}
    --audience {user,maintainer,all}
    --scope {user,project}
    --skill <name>        # filter to specific skills, repeatable
    --out <path>          # override install dir / output file
    --force               # overwrite files not marked managed-by: tvbo
    --dry-run             # show what would happen, write nothing
    --strict              # exit non-zero if any skill is refused

Targets

Default. Writes one SKILL.md per skill into a Claude Code skill directory:

tvbo skills install --target claude-code              # ~/.claude/skills/tvbo-<name>/SKILL.md
tvbo skills install --target claude-code --scope project   # ./.claude/skills/tvbo-<name>/SKILL.md

Project scope is useful if you want a notebook directory to “ship” with those skills (e.g. a tutorial repo where a co-author will clone and use the same AI assistant config).

Writes .mdc rule files into a Cursor rules directory:

tvbo skills install --target cursor             # ~/.cursor/rules/tvbo-<name>.mdc
tvbo skills install --target cursor --scope project  # ./.cursor/rules/tvbo-<name>.mdc

Cursor uses the globs field from the canonical applies_to metadata to match on file paths.

Inserts the skills-index region into an AGENTS.md file in the current directory (or --out). Use this if your team uses any agents.md-compliant tool (Aider, Codex CLI, Continue .dev when configured to read it):

tvbo skills install --target agents-md           # updates ./AGENTS.md
tvbo skills install --target agents-md --out my-project/AGENTS.md

Only the <!-- BEGIN SKILLS INDEX -->...<!-- END SKILLS INDEX --> region is rewritten — your prose around it is left untouched. If the markers don’t exist yet, an AGENTS.md with a minimal stub is created.

Dumps all (or filtered) skills as one concatenated markdown document, formatted as a system prompt. Useful for raw API calls (Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral) or local-model setups (Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp) where there is no IDE harness:

tvbo skills install --target prompt > tvbo-system-prompt.md
tvbo skills install --target prompt --skill overview --skill writing-models

You can then feed tvbo-system-prompt.md as the system prompt in your script.

Installs every applicable target (claude-code + cursor + agents-md). Use when you want maximum coverage in a single command.

Audience filtering

By default, tvbo skills install writes user-audience skills only — the four end-user skills (overview, writing-models, running-simulations, platform).

The maintainer skills (git, writing-code, linkml-schema, codegen-templates, tests-and-backends, grill-me) are only relevant when working inside a clone of the tvbo repository — they live in the repo’s .claude/skills/ and .github/instructions/, regenerated by tvbo skills sync. If you really want them on disk in your home directory (e.g. you’re a TVBO contributor and want them globally):

tvbo skills install --audience maintainer
tvbo skills install --audience all

Filtering by skill name

tvbo skills install --skill overview --skill writing-models

Skill names match either the canonical name (writing-models) or the installed name (tvbo-writing-models).

Upgrade / overwrite policy

TVBO stamps a managed-by: tvbo line into every file it writes. On subsequent installs:

  • File doesn’t exist → install it.
  • File exists with managed-by: tvbo → overwrite (it’s ours).
  • File exists without managed-by: tvbo → refuse. You either customised it or another tool put it there. Pass --force to overwrite, or move the file out of the way first.
tvbo skills install --dry-run    # see what would happen
tvbo skills install --force      # overwrite anyway
tvbo skills install --strict     # exit 1 if anything was refused

--strict is intended for CI / scripts. Without it, refusals are reported but the command still exits 0.

Uninstalling

tvbo skills uninstall --target claude-code        # ~/.claude/skills/tvbo-*
tvbo skills uninstall --target cursor             # ~/.cursor/rules/tvbo-*.mdc
tvbo skills uninstall --target all                # both
tvbo skills uninstall --dry-run                   # show, don't delete

Only files carrying the managed-by: tvbo marker are removed. Other files in the same directory — including ones you wrote yourself — are left untouched.

Reporting

Every install prints a summary:

skills install: installed=4 updated=0 refused=0 skipped=0
Counter Meaning
installed New file written
updated Existing managed file overwritten
refused File exists, not managed-by tvbo, no --force
skipped Skill filtered out by --audience / --skill