The Missing Skills Manager for AI Agents: Why ASK Changes Everything

 

The Problem Every AI Developer Faces

You’re building with Claude. Or maybe Cursor. Perhaps Codex is your weapon of choice. Whatever your AI agent stack looks like, you’ve probably hit the same wall we all have:

Managing agent skills is a mess.

You find a cool browser automation skill on GitHub. You copy-paste it into your project. A week later, you discover a better one. Now you have two versions, no version control, and absolutely no idea which one actually works. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, in the JavaScript world, developers run npm install and move on with their lives. Python folks have pip. macOS users have brew. But AI agent developers? We've been stuck in the dark ages—until now.

Introducing ASK: Agent Skills Kit

ASK is the package manager for AI agent capabilities. Think brew for skills, npm for agent superpowers.

# Search for skills
ask skill search browser
# Install what you need
ask skill install browser-use
# Done. Your agent is now supercharged.

That’s it. Three commands and your AI agent just learned how to browse the web like a pro.

Why ASK Exists

The AI agent ecosystem is exploding. Anthropic has skills. Vercel offers agent-skills. OpenAI is building their own. The community is creating incredible tools daily.

But here’s the catch: there was no unified way to discover, install, or manage any of this.

ASK solves this by providing:

🔍 Universal Discovery

Search across multiple skill sources with one command. GitHub repos, community hubs like SkillHub.club, and official sources from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Vercel — all searchable from your terminal.

📦 Version Locking

Every installation creates an ask.lock file with exact commit hashes. No more "it worked yesterday" surprises. Your team gets identical skill versions every time.

🎯 Agent-Specific Installation

Different agents, different paths:

• Claude: .claude/skills/
• Cursor: .cursor/skills/
• Codex: .codex/skills/

ASK handles the routing automatically.

✈️ Offline Support

Air-gapped environment? No problem. ASK works completely offline once your skills are installed.

Getting Started in 60 Seconds

Step 1: Install ASK

macOS/Linux (Homebrew):

brew tap yeasy/ask

brew install ask

Go developers:

go install github.com/yeasy/ask@latest

Step 2: Initialize Your Project

cd your-project
ask init

This creates ask.yaml—your project's skill manifest.

Step 3: Install Skills

# Browse available skills
ask skill search web
# Install by name
ask skill install browser-use
# Or by repository
ask skill install superpowers
# Pin to a specific version
ask skill install browser-use@v1.0.0

Step 4: Verify Your Setup

ask skill list

Your project now looks like this:

my-project/
├── ask.yaml          # Project config
├── ask.lock          # Pinned versions
└── .agent/
└── skills/
├── browser-use/
└── superpowers/

Trusted Skill Sources

ASK comes pre-configured with the best sources in the ecosystem:

Source Description

anthropics/skills Official Anthropic skills

openai/skills Official OpenAI skills

vercel-labs/agent-skills Vercel’s agent tools

obra/superpowers Community superpowers

SkillHub.club Community skill hub

Need a custom source? Add it:

ask repo add https://github.com/your-org/your-skills

Real-World Use Cases

🤖 Building a Research Agent

ask skill install web-search
ask skill install pdf-reader
ask skill install citation-generator

Your Claude agent can now research papers, read PDFs, and generate proper citations — all managed through ASK.

🌐 Creating a Web Automation Bot

ask skill install browser-use
ask skill install screenshot
ask skill install form-filler

Cursor can now navigate websites, capture screenshots, and fill out forms.

📊 Data Analysis Pipeline

ask skill install csv-processor
ask skill install chart-generator
ask skill install report-builder

Your agent transforms raw data into polished reports.

The Commands You’ll Actually Use

CommandWhat It Doesask skill search <keyword>Find skills across all sourcesask skill install <name>Install a skillask skill install <name>@v1.0.0Install specific versionask skill listSee installed skillsask skill updateUpdate all skillsask skill outdatedCheck for newer versionsask skill uninstall <name>Remove a skillask repo listList configured sourcesask repo add <url>Add a custom source

Why This Matters

The AI agent revolution is happening. But revolutions need infrastructure.

Remember when JavaScript was chaos before npm? When installing Python packages meant hunting down tarballs? When macOS developers compiled everything from source?

ASK is that infrastructure moment for AI agents.

By standardizing how skills are discovered, installed, and versioned, ASK unlocks:

• Reproducible agent environments across teams
• Faster iteration on agent capabilities
• A shared ecosystem where the best skills rise to the top
• Enterprise-grade control over what agents can and cannot do

Get Involved

ASK is open source and MIT licensed. We’re building the future of AI agent infrastructure, and we want you involved.

🌟 Star the repo: github.com/yeasy/ask

🛠️ Contribute: Check out CONTRIBUTING.md

📖 Documentation: Full docs

💬 Join the conversation: Open an issue, suggest a feature, share your use case

The Future is Modular

AI agents are only as powerful as their skills. And skills are only as useful as they are accessible.

ASK makes agent capabilities as easy to manage as any other dependency. Install what you need. Lock what works. Update when you want.

Your agents deserve better than copy-paste. They deserve ASK.

brew tap yeasy/ask && brew install ask

Just ask, the agents are ready!