Agent Skill

Agent Skill

atlcli ships an agent skill that teaches a coding agent to drive atlcli for Jira and Confluence: the flag grammar, JSON output and error codes, and the rule to confirm every write with the user. It uses the Agent Skills layout, a SKILL.md with linked files under references/, and lives at skills/atlcli/ in the repository. Every atlcli binary carries a copy built from the same source, and atlcli skill prints it.

Prerequisites

• atlcli installed and on PATH, for atlcli skill
• An agent that loads skills from a directory, such as .claude/skills/

Install the skill

From the installed binary

atlcli skill --install .claude/skills

writes the skill to .claude/skills/atlcli/. After an atlcli upgrade, run the command again: an installed copy stays as it was.

Files of the skill already in that directory are overwritten. Other files stay and are listed in the output. A symbolic link in place of atlcli/, its references/ directory or one of the skill’s files is refused before anything is written, so a linked checkout is never overwritten.

From the repository

Copy skills/atlcli/ from the repository into the agent’s skills directory, or point an installer that follows the Agent Skills layout at it. The repository copy follows the main branch.

Read the skill without installing it

atlcli skill                                           # SKILL.md
atlcli skill --list                                    # every file of the skill
atlcli skill references/safety.md                      # one file
atlcli skill 'references/invocation.md#flag-grammar'   # a link, as written

Every link in the skill works as the argument as written. A #anchor is ignored. A link inside a reference file, such as safety.md, is found under references/. Quote a link with # in zsh, where the extendedglob option treats # as a pattern.

Options

Option	Type	Default	Required	Constraints
<path>	string	SKILL.md	optional	A path from --list, or a link as written; not with --list or --install
--list	flag	off	optional	Takes no value; not with <path> or --install
--install <skills-root>	path	none	optional	One non-empty directory; <skills-root>/atlcli, its references/ and the skill’s files in it must not be symbolic links; not with <path> or --list
--json	flag	off	optional	Takes no value

JSON output

atlcli skill references/safety.md --json
# {"path": "references/safety.md", "content": "..."}

atlcli skill --list --json
# {"files": ["SKILL.md", "references/auth-and-config.md", ...]}

atlcli skill --install .claude/skills --json
# {"directory": "/home/me/project/.claude/skills/atlcli", "files": [...], "extra": ["notes.md"]}

extra lists the files in the directory that are not part of the skill, as paths relative to it.

Troubleshooting

Unknown skill file: .... The path names no file of this version’s skill. The message lists the available files, and atlcli skill --list prints them. In JSON mode the error is ATLCLI_ERR_USAGE with details.available.

... is a symbolic link, ... is not a directory or ... is not a regular file from --install. The skill directory, its references/ directory or one of the skill’s files in it is a symbolic link or of the wrong type. Remove it, or install into another skills directory.

Related topics

• CLI Commands
• Shell Completion
• Confluence for Coding Agents