Tutorial: Automating Skill Updates in a Monorepo

This guide explains how to manage a repository containing multiple skills (a "monorepo") and automate their deployment using the official skr GitHub Action.

Repository Structure

We recommend a simple directory structure where each skill resides in its own folder under skills/:

my-skills-repo/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── release.yaml
├── skills/
│   ├── git/
│   │   └── SKILL.md
│   ├── docker/
│   │   └── SKILL.md
│   └── text-utils/
│       └── SKILL.md
└── README.md

Automation Strategy

To efficiently manage updates, we use skr batch publish. This command: 1. Detects changes: Checks which skills/* directories have changed since the last commit. 2. Builds: Creates OCI artifacts for modified skills.
3. Pushes: Uploads them to the registry.

GitHub Action Workflow

We provide a Docker-based GitHub Action that simplifies this process significantly. You don't need to write complex scripts or matrix strategies.

`.github/workflows/deploy-skills.yaml`

name: Deploy Skills

on:
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]
    paths:
      - 'skills/**'

env:
  REGISTRY: ghcr.io
  NAMESPACE: ${{ github.repository_owner }}

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0 # Required for change detection

    - name: Publish Skills
      uses: andrewhowdencom/skr@main
      with:
        registry: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}
        username: ${{ github.actor }}
        password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        namespace: ${{ env.NAMESPACE }}
        repository: ${{ github.event.repository.name }} # Creates: ghcr.io/owner/repo.skill
        base: ${{ github.event.before }}
        path: ./skills

How It Works

Change Detection: The action (via skr batch publish) compares the current commit against base (the previous commit github.event.before) to find modified skills.
Build & Push: It automatically builds and pushes artifacts for changed skills to the registry.

Manual Publishing

You can also run this locally using the CLI:

skr batch publish ./skills \
  --registry ghcr.io \
  --namespace myuser \
  --base origin/main