dsh-skills-nexus

dsh-skills-nexus

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A universal DSH skill adapter. Install once, then register any GitHub repo that contains a SKILL.md as a DSH skill — one command at a time. The skill repo itself stays pure: no Cordis plugin code, no package.json, no cordis.patch.yml required.

Nexus works by cloning SKILL.md repos to a local ~/.dsh/skills-nexus/repos/ directory and creating symlinks in the official DSH skills root (~/.dsh/skills/). The official filesystem provider automatically discovers, watches, and serves them — no custom provider or runtime scanning needed.

Why

dsh plugin --profile <name> add "github:owner/repo" forwards to pnpm, and only packages with dsh.bundle.patch are activated as profile layers. A content repo with just SKILL.md + references/ + scripts/ has no Cordis wrapper, so this path doesn't work. dsh-skills-nexus fills the gap:

command	installs	requires dsh.bundle.patch?
dsh plugin add github:owner/dsh-skills-nexus	nexus itself (once)	yes
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/any-skill	pure SKILL.md content repo	no

Not sure which command fits your repo? Read nexus vs dsh plugin — when to use which. Short version: repo has SKILL.md → nexus; repo is a pure plugin (cordis.patch.yml / dsh.bundle.patch, no SKILL.md) → dsh plugin; has both → your choice (nexus = content, plugin = code).

Install nexus

Install the CLI globally — this is what puts the dsh-skills-nexus command on your shell PATH:

npm install -g github:xiaxi626/dsh-skills-nexus

lib/ compiled artifacts are committed with the repo, so there is no build step — install and use. (Once the package is published to npm you can use npm install -g dsh-skills-nexus instead.)

dsh plugin add does NOT provide the shell command. Registering nexus as a DSH plugin (dsh plugin --profile web add "github:xiaxi626/dsh-skills-nexus") only installs the package into the profile's node_modules and registers a Cordis layer whose apply() is an intentional no-op — skill discovery happens through the symlinks nexus creates in ~/.dsh/skills/ plus the official filesystem provider. The plugin layer is therefore optional on both counts: it has no effect on the CLI, and skills load without it too — discovery runs entirely through the symlinks + the official provider. The dsh-skills-nexus command comes only from the global npm install above (or npm link during development).

Usage

# register a skill repo (cloned under ~/.dsh/skills-nexus/repos/<name>/)
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/repo
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/repo#dev          # pick a branch/tag
dsh-skills-nexus add https://github.com/owner/repo
dsh-skills-nexus add owner/repo                     # shorthand
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/a github:owner/b  # install several repos in one call
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/repo --yes         # skip "wrapped repo?" prompt
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/repo --subdir skills/foo   # install one subdir of a collection repo
dsh-skills-nexus add github:owner/repo --subdir skills --name owner-skills   # custom entry name (fallback chain: --name > subdir leaf > repo name)

# inspect / maintain
dsh-skills-nexus list                               # all registered skills (+ source repo, commit, subdir, status)
dsh-skills-nexus update [name]                      # refresh (branch pin: pull; tag/commit pin: verify)
dsh-skills-nexus enable  <name>                     # create symlink (default)
dsh-skills-nexus disable <name>                     # remove symlink without deleting clone
dsh-skills-nexus remove <name>...                   # delete clone + symlink + unregister (one or more)
dsh-skills-nexus remove 'theme-*'                   # ...or a * / ? glob matched against skill names
dsh-skills-nexus doctor [--json] [--updates] [--quiet]  # read-only full checkup of nexus state (exit 0/1/2)

Value options (--name, --ref, --subdir) also accept the --flag=value form (e.g. --subdir=skills/foo, --name=owner-skills); the boolean --yes takes no value.

add accepts multiple repo specs and remove accepts multiple names plus */? globs; each target is handled independently and the exit code is non-zero if any one failed. Because --name/--ref/--subdir are per-repo, they cannot be combined with multiple add specs — run separate add commands to customize each. A remove glob matching more than one skill lists them and asks for confirmation first (--yes skips it); quote the pattern ('theme-*') so your shell does not expand it.

Accepted repo forms: github:owner/repo[#ref], full https:// URL (incl. /tree/<ref>/... subpaths), git+https://, git@/ssh://, and bare owner/repo shorthand.

When you add a repo, nexus inspects the clone before registering it:

• Plain SKILL.md repo — registered directly.
• SKILL.md + DSH plugin wrapper — asks whether to ignore the wrapper and manage as a plain SKILL.md repo. Type y to continue, n to abort and suggest installing via dsh plugin add. Use --yes to skip the prompt.
• Pure DSH plugin (no SKILL.md) — prints a message telling you to use that repo's own DSH plugin installation flow, then exits without registering.
• Neither — reports that no SKILL.md or DSH plugin marker was found and exits with an error.
• Collection repos (skills/<name>/SKILL.md layout, e.g. trae-community/trae-skills) — installing the whole repo yields no installable skill at the root; nexus rejects it and suggests --subdir <path>. Installations that yield more than 20 skills trigger a confirmation prompt (skip with --yes).

Uninstall

Two levels, choose as needed:

Remove individual skills

# list registered skills
dsh-skills-nexus list

# remove one (deletes symlink, clone directory, and unregisters)
dsh-skills-nexus remove <skill-name>

# remove several at once — by name, or by a * / ? glob (quote it)
dsh-skills-nexus remove <name1> <name2>
dsh-skills-nexus remove 'theme-*' --yes

The skill disappears from the DSH catalog on the next reload. All other registered skills are unaffected.

Uninstall nexus itself

Nexus leaves three independent things, cleaned by different commands — removing one does not remove the others. The annotated block below clears each one; run only the lines you need.

The trap everyone hits — read this first. The dsh-skills-nexus you type in the shell comes only from item 3 below (npm link or npm install -g). --patch mounts a layer for the current DSH process only, and dsh plugin add only writes the profile's node_modules — neither puts a command on your shell PATH. So "I installed the GitHub version but it still runs my local logic" means the command you typed went through item 3's npm link into your local workspace; it has nothing to do with the copy GitHub installed into item 2. To really switch to remote: npm uninstall -g dsh-skills-nexus, then npm install -g github:<owner>/<repo>.

# 1. skill DATA — the clones + manifest under ~/.dsh/skills-nexus/ (data, not the command)
dsh-skills-nexus remove '*' --yes          # '*' matches every registered skill

# 2. DSH profile plugin layer — only if you used `dsh plugin add` (--patch does NOT write here)
dsh plugin --profile web remove dsh-skills-nexus

# 3. global CLI command — THIS is the `dsh-skills-nexus` you type in the shell
npm uninstall -g dsh-skills-nexus

# (optional) delete any leftover skill-data directory from item 1
#    macOS / Linux:
rm -rf ~/.dsh/skills-nexus
#    Windows PowerShell:
# Remove-Item -Recurse -Force ~/.dsh/skills-nexus

Restart the DSH profile. The plugin layer, the CLI command and all managed skills will be gone.

Never "clean up" with a bare relative Remove-Item -Recurse -Force dsh-skills-nexus: its effect depends on the current directory — from the npm global prefix it deletes the CLI's bin shims (the command suddenly becomes "not found"), and from your clone's parent it deletes your source tree. If you truly want to discard the local clone, delete it by explicit full path.

Fallback — manual removal (only if npm uninstall -g is unavailable). Delete the bin shims first, then the link. Never pass -Recurse when removing the link: it is a junction/symlink into your clone, and -Recurse would follow it and delete your source tree.

# Windows PowerShell
Remove-Item -Force "$(npm prefix -g)\dsh-skills-nexus*"               # bin shims
Remove-Item -Force "$(npm prefix -g)\node_modules\dsh-skills-nexus"   # the link — NO -Recurse

On Git Bash / macOS / Linux just use npm uninstall -g dsh-skills-nexus; do not hand-delete the link there (rm on a directory-style link is unsafe).

Local testing steps

You can fully test nexus on your machine without pushing to GitHub or publishing to npm. Follow these five steps.

Step 1 — build the project

Inside the dsh-skills-nexus/ directory:

cd dsh-skills-nexus
npm install
npm run build      # generates lib/

If you've made changes and want to verify types before building, run npm run typecheck (type-check only, no output).

Step 2 — create a local overlay

Create overlay.yml in the project root (note: do not commit this to git, it's for local development only):

# overlay.yml
- insert:
    - id: dsh-skills-nexus
      # Windows: '/C:/your/path/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'
      # macOS:   '/Users/your/path/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'
      # Linux:   '/home/your/path/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'
      name: '/your/absolute/path/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'

name should be the absolute path to lib/index.js. On Windows, prefix the drive letter with /, e.g. '/C:/dev/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'; on macOS / Linux, use a standard absolute path, e.g. '/home/user/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js'.

Or generate it with a one-liner (make sure you've cd'd into the project dir):

Windows (Git Bash / MINGW):

cat > overlay.yml <<EOF
- insert:
    - id: dsh-skills-nexus
      name: '/$(pwd -W)/lib/index.js'
EOF

pwd -W outputs a Windows-style absolute path (e.g. C:/Users/xxx/dsh-skills-nexus). You must prefix it with /, resulting in /C:/Users/xxx/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js. Node.js ESM loader doesn't accept bare C:/... paths on Windows (treats c: as a protocol) — it must be /C:/... or file:///C:/....

macOS / Linux:

cat > overlay.yml <<EOF
- insert:
    - id: dsh-skills-nexus
      name: '$(pwd)/lib/index.js'
EOF

pwd outputs a Unix-style absolute path (e.g. /Users/xxx/dsh-skills-nexus), which already starts with /, resulting in /Users/xxx/dsh-skills-nexus/lib/index.js.

Step 3 — start DSH in patch mode

npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web --patch overlay.yml

This mounts nexus as a temporary layer for this DSH process only — stop the process and the layer is gone; nothing is persisted to the profile. Note it does not put the dsh-skills-nexus CLI on your shell PATH; the shell command comes from npm link in Step 4. After changing code, re-run npm run build and restart DSH to pick up changes.

Step 4 — add a skill and test with the CLI

Note: do not move the project folder during local testing. If you move it after npm link, re-running npm link will fail with EEXIST: file already exists — the global link still points to the old location. See the fix below.

Open another terminal:

# link the CLI globally for easy access
cd dsh-skills-nexus
npm link

# add a real skill repo to test with
dsh-skills-nexus add github:xiaxi626/theme-port-skill

# verify it was registered
dsh-skills-nexus list

# check that symlinks were created in the official root
ls -la ~/.dsh/skills/

If you moved the folder and npm link fails with EEXIST:

Option A — overwrite with --force (simplest, works on all platforms):

npm link --force

Option B — remove the stale global link with npm, then re-link (all platforms):

npm uninstall -g dsh-skills-nexus
npm link

Prefer npm uninstall -g over manually deleting files under the npm global prefix: it removes the bin shims and the link in one safe step, and avoids Remove-Item / rm footguns on a symlinked global package.

Step 5 — verify in DSH

Note: the DSH process started in Step 3 with --patch was running before you added a skill in Step 4, so asking "what skills do you have?" in the original DSH session won't show the new skill — the provider hasn't scanned it yet.

You must stop and restart: go back to the terminal from Step 3, press Ctrl+C to stop the process, then re-run:

npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web --patch overlay.yml

After restart, DSH reloads the filesystem provider, which scans ~/.dsh/skills/ for symlinks and discovers the skill you just added.

Once restarted, ask "what skills do you have?" or similar in the DSH session, and check whether theme-port-skill appears in the skill list.

Clean up after local testing

--patch wrote nothing to the profile, so there is no plugin to remove. Local testing leaves just two things — the skill data and the npm link — so follow Uninstall nexus itself items 1 and 3 (run dsh-skills-nexus remove '*' --yes first, then npm uninstall -g dsh-skills-nexus); skip item 2 (dsh plugin remove), which does not apply here.

---

Lighter verification (without starting DSH)

If you just want to verify the "clone + symlink creation + list" pipeline without starting DSH, use the CLI directly:

# add a skill
dsh-skills-nexus add github:xiaxi626/theme-port-skill

# check registration
dsh-skills-nexus list

# verify symlinks were created
ls -la ~/.dsh/skills/

If list shows the expected skill and ls -la shows symlinks pointing to repos/ directories, the clone + symlink pipeline is working correctly.

---

Notes & limitations

• add then visibility: newly added skills appear after DSH rescans ~/.dsh/skills/. If the profile was already running, reload it — the official filesystem provider will rescan the skills root and pick up newly created symlinks.
• Version pinning & updates: pin a ref with #branch, #tag, or #commit-sha. At install time the manifest records the exact resolved commit (commit) — a lightweight lock that list shows. update only fast-forwards branch-pinned skills (printing the commit change); tag/commit-pinned skills are fixed points: it verifies the checkout still matches the pin (and restores it if it drifted) instead of pulling, so a pinned version never silently drifts. When no #ref is given, the CLI detects the remote's default branch via git ls-remote --symref (falls back to main).
• Skill content repos only: this is not a replacement for dsh plugin add of real Cordis plugins. If a repo already ships a dsh.bundle.patch, install it the normal way — nexus is for repos that don't. See nexus vs dsh plugin for the full decision guide.
• Collection repos & --subdir: collection repos (skills nested under subdirectories, e.g. trae-community/trae-skills) are installed piecemeal with --subdir <path> — each install is its own entry with its own clone (independent-clone design, see docs/subdir-design.md for the P1/P2 trade-off). Installing the whole repo without --subdir is guarded by a confirmation prompt above 20 skills. Entries cherry-picked from the same repo each keep their own clone, but list shows a SOURCE column (the origin owner/repo) so same-origin entries are easy to spot.
• Flat-markdown filter: a flat *.md file without frontmatter name AND description is not treated as a skill — collection-repo docs like README.zh-CN.md, CONTRIBUTING.md or community-leaderboard.md are never "fake-installed". Doc-like names (readme*, contributing*, license*, changelog*, code-of-conduct*, security*) are skipped at discovery.
• Name collisions: DSH indexes skills by name; a later install with the same name overwrites. Use --name to distinguish entries, or --subdir to install only what you need. enable/disable work per entry, remove deletes the whole entry's clone and all its symlinks.
• Skill name validation: DSH requires lowercase kebab-case skill names ([a-z0-9]+ segments separated by single -). nexus normalizes invalid frontmatter names at add time (converted to kebab-case) and warns with ⚠.
• Build scripts: because nexus clones content repos itself (not via pnpm), it sidesteps pnpm allowBuilds interception entirely.
• Windows links: nexus creates directory junctions on Windows (symlink(..., 'junction')) and plain directory symlinks elsewhere — neither needs Developer Mode or admin privileges.

Documentation

• Architecture — data flow, directory layout, SKILL.md discovery
• nexus vs dsh plugin — when to use which
• Subdir design — P1/P2 trade-off for collection repos
• Verifying the version-lock feature (P0)
• Verifying the clone-retry feature (P0)
• Verifying collection-repo support (P1)
• Verifying the plugin-load contract (plugin add → dsh web cold boot)
• Verifying the doctor command (P0)
• Contributing — project layout, testing & CI
• Changelog

Contributing

Contributions of all kinds are welcome — bug fixes, new commands, docs. See CONTRIBUTING.md for project layout, local setup, and quality gates.

Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue — we use issue templates to make it easy.

License

MIT