developing-and-testing-skills
coreUse when iterating locally on a packaged skill with agentpack author dev, the localhost workbench, repo-local materialization, and runtime testing feedback loops.
Agentpack - Developing And Testing Skills
Setup
cd knowledge-base
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
Core Patterns
Start local dev with the workbench
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
This links the selected skill into .claude/skills/ and .agents/skills/, records the active dev session in .agentpack/dev-session.json, and starts a localhost workbench by default.
Use CLI-only mode when you explicitly do not want the dashboard
agentpack author dev --no-dashboard domains/value/skills/copywriting
Stop and clean up local links
agentpack author unlink value-copywriting
If the previous dev process was killed badly and left stale runtime links behind:
agentpack author dev cleanup
If a wrapper-managed process left a false-positive live pid in .agentpack/dev-session.json:
agentpack author dev cleanup --force
If you need to remove the active root plus its recorded transitive links in one shot:
agentpack author unlink value-copywriting --recursive
Common Mistakes
HIGH Expecting the current agent session to pick up new links
Wrong:
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
Correct:
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
# start a fresh agent session if one was already running
Already-running agent sessions may not rescan newly materialized skills.
Source: README.md
MEDIUM Assuming unresolved requires block local dev links
Wrong:
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
# ignore the unresolved warning because linking succeeded
Correct:
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
agentpack skills status
author dev can still link the selected skill while warning about unresolved packaged requirements. Use skills status to check runtime health.
Source: docs/commands.mdx
MEDIUM Using no-dashboard mode and expecting workbench actions
Wrong:
agentpack author dev --no-dashboard domains/value/skills/copywriting
Correct:
agentpack author dev domains/value/skills/copywriting
--no-dashboard suppresses the localhost workbench entirely.
Source: docs/introduction.mdx