Skills installation

Overview

The lk skills command installs LiveKit's Agent Skills from the livekit/agent-skills  repository into the coding agents on your machine, and adds the LiveKit Docs MCP server to each agent's MCP configuration. Requires LiveKit CLI v2.19.0 or later. To install the CLI, see Install the CLI.

# Install every skill and the Docs MCP server for the agents detected on this machine
lk skills install

# See what's installed and whether it's current
lk skills list

# Pull the latest skills
lk skills update

# Uninstall
lk skills remove

Supported coding agents

Pass these IDs to --agent to target specific coding agents. Without --agent, lk skills install prompts with the detected agents preselected, or uses them directly with --yes. To add the Docs MCP server where the CLI can't, see Docs MCP server.

Project and global installs

By default, lk skills works on the current project's agent directories. Pass --global (-g) to use your user-level agent directories, so the skills apply to every project on your machine.

Lock file

Installs are recorded in skills-lock.json in the project, or ~/.agents/.skill-lock.json with --global. Commit skills-lock.json along with the skills. npx skills  and gh skill use the same lock files, so they can update skills that lk skills installed.

Local edits

The CLI never overwrites or removes a skill you've edited locally unless you pass --force. LiveKit skills it didn't install, such as copies committed to a starter template, are replaced by install and update once you confirm, and kept by remove unless you pass --force. Pass --yes to accept prompts in scripts and CI.

Commands

install

Install every LiveKit skill, or only the ones you name, and add the Docs MCP server to each agent's MCP configuration.

lk skills install [options] [SKILL ...]

Alias: add.

Options for skills install:

• SKILL: Optional skill names to install. If omitted, installs every skill.
• --agent, -a: Coding agent to target. Repeatable. See Supported coding agents for IDs.
• --global, -g: Install into your user-level agent directories instead of the current project.
• --skip-mcp: Don't add the Docs MCP server to agent configs.
• --force: Overwrite skills you've edited locally.
• --json, -j: Output as JSON.

Examples

Install for Claude Code and Codex only:

lk skills install --agent claude-code --agent codex

Install a single skill without touching MCP configuration:

lk skills install building-livekit-agents --skip-mcp

list

Show the available skills, where each one is installed and whether it's current, and each agent's Docs MCP server setup.

lk skills list [options]

Alias: ls.

Options for skills list:

• --global, -g: List user-level installs instead of the current project.
• --json, -j: Output as JSON.

update

Update installed LiveKit skills to the published set, adding new skills and removing retired ones.

lk skills update [options] [SKILL ...]

Alias: upgrade.

Options for skills update:

• SKILL: Optional skill names to update. If omitted, updates every installed LiveKit skill.
• --global, -g: Update user-level installs instead of the current project.
• --force: Overwrite skills you've edited locally.
• --json, -j: Output as JSON.

remove

Remove every LiveKit skill, or only the ones you name, from agent skills directories. The CLI asks before deleting. MCP configuration is left as is.

lk skills remove [options] [SKILL ...]

Aliases: rm, uninstall.

Options for skills remove:

• SKILL: Optional skill names to remove. If omitted, removes every LiveKit skill.
• --agent, -a: Coding agent to remove skills from. Repeatable.
• --global, -g: Remove user-level installs instead of the current project.
• --force: Also remove skills you've edited locally, and LiveKit skills that lk didn't install.
• --json, -j: Output as JSON.

New projects

lk agent init asks which coding agents to install skills for. Pass --skills to install for the detected agents without asking, or --skills=false to skip. To add skills later, run lk skills install in the project.