vara-skills

vara-skills is a portable, self-contained skill pack for standard Gear/Vara Sails builders.

It is designed to help coding agents start from the right builder workflow, then pull the narrow Gear and Sails knowledge they need without depending on sibling repos or machine-local notes. The current public catalog is provisional and is expected to change as the eval suite identifies which candidate skills actually create uplift.

How It Works

Each skill is a markdown file.

• SKILL.md is the top-level router for the pack.
• skills//SKILL.md is a narrower workflow or topic skill.
• references/ is the self-contained handbook for Gear execution, Sails architecture, IDL/client generation, gtest, local validation, voucher/signless flows, and network configuration.

The pack is being narrowed toward standard Gear/Vara Sails app builders:

• preparing the local Rust and Gear toolchain
• turning feature ideas into spec, architecture, and task artifacts
• starting a new Sails app
• building features in an existing Sails app
• implementing approved Rust or Sails changes
• reasoning about Gear message flow and execution behavior
• choosing the right gstd API when design depends on lower-level Gear behavior
• getting architecture, IDL or client wiring, gtest, and local-node validation right
• building or extending a React frontend for a standard Sails app with Sails-JS and Gear-JS
• wiring gasless (voucher) and signless (session) UX flows

Installation

Quick Start (any agent)

npx skills add gear-foundation/vara-skills

Works with Claude Code, Codex, and any agent that supports the skills CLI. Installs all 24 skills and the reference handbook in one command.

Codex

Clone the repo and install the local skills:

git clone [email protected]:gear-foundation/vara-skills.git
cd vara-skills
bash scripts/install-codex-skills.sh

This installs the full Codex pack surface:

• $CODEX_HOME/skills/vara-skills -> repo root, including the router SKILL.md, shared assets/, shared references/, and helper scripts.
• $CODEX_HOME/skills/ -> each installable skill directory under skills/.

Then start a new Codex session and use vara-skills when you want the pack router.

Claude Code Plugin

Claude Code can install this repo directly as a plugin. You do not need a separate Claude-specific fork.

Recommended install from GitHub:

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/gear-foundation/vara-skills
/plugin install vara-skills@vara-skills

If you are developing the plugin from a local checkout, run these commands from the repo root instead:

/plugin marketplace add .
/plugin install vara-skills@vara-skills

After local edits, reload the plugin without restarting Claude Code:

/reload-plugins

What Claude Code installs:

• the skill directories under skills/
• the same shared references/ and assets/ content those skills point at