One set of skills for every workspace

Write a skill once and every workspace that uses your team’s package gets it. Change the skill, sync, and the change lands everywhere — no copying files into each workspace by hand, and no drift between one workspace’s copy and another’s.

This guide builds a package called team-skills with two skills, write-tests and deploy-preview, and puts it on two workspaces, acme and globex. It also installs the same skills on your own computer, so your coding agent there knows them too.

You need: a machine already set up, and a getting started run through once.

Before you start: machine, skills, workspace

curl -fsSL https://mydevmachine.sh/install.sh | sh
devmachine setup
devmachine skills add
devmachine workspaces new acme
devmachine sync

Already have a machine? Skip setup. Already have the workspace? Skip the last two. See getting started for what each command does.

By hand

1. Create the package

devmachine packages new team-skills --scope workspace --into ~/.config/devmachine/packages

~/.config/devmachine is your configuration folder — run devmachine config path if you are not sure yours is there. --scope workspace because skills are something each workspace gets, not the machine itself. This writes a starting package.yml at ~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/package.yml.

2. Tell the package to ship skills

Open package.yml and add the skills field:

format: 1
name: team-skills
scope: workspace
category: Coding agents
summary: Our team's shared agent skills.
skills:
  path: skills

path: skills says every folder directly inside skills/ is a complete Agent Skill.

3. Write the skills

mkdir -p ~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/skills/write-tests
mkdir -p ~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/skills/deploy-preview

~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/skills/write-tests/SKILL.md:

---
name: write-tests
description: Use when adding a new feature or fixing a bug in this project, before opening a PR, to write the tests that cover it. Follow the project's existing test style and put the file next to the code it tests.
---

# Write tests

1. Find the existing tests closest to the code you changed. Match their
   file name pattern and test framework.
2. Write one test for the normal case and one for the edge case that
   would break if the fix regressed.
3. Run the test suite and confirm the new tests fail without your change
   and pass with it.
4. Do not commit until the whole suite is green.

~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/skills/deploy-preview/SKILL.md:

---
name: deploy-preview
description: Use when a change is ready for someone else to look at, to publish a preview build they can open in a browser, instead of asking them to check out the branch.
---

# Deploy a preview

1. Build the project in preview mode.
2. Publish the build to the team's preview host.
3. Post the preview URL where the reviewer will see it.
4. Say what changed since the last preview, in one or two lines.

Each SKILL.md needs frontmatter with name (matching the folder) and a description that says when to use it — that is what your agent reads to decide to pick the skill up.

4. Validate it

devmachine packages validate ~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills

Fix anything it reports before moving on — it checks every problem at once, not just the first.

5. Add the package to both workspaces

devmachine packages add team-skills --workspace acme
devmachine workspaces new globex
devmachine packages add team-skills --workspace globex

6. Sync

devmachine sync

This sends team-skills to both workspaces. A workspace that also has claude-code, antigravity or cline gets a link to the same files for that agent; Codex, Pi, OpenCode and Kimi Code read them directly.

7. Install it on your own computer too

devmachine skills add --package team-skills

Now your own coding agent knows write-tests and deploy-preview as well, without a machine involved.

8. Change a skill, then sync again

Edit ~/.config/devmachine/packages/team-skills/skills/write-tests/SKILL.md — say, add a step about coverage. Then:

devmachine sync
devmachine skills update

sync pushes the new version to acme and globex. skills update refreshes your own computer’s copy. One edit, three places updated.

With your agent

In a Claude Code, Codex, or Pi session on your own computer (devmachine skills add already done there):

Create a devmachine package called team-skills, scope workspace, in my
configuration folder. Give it two skills: write-tests (use it before
opening a PR to write tests for the change) and deploy-preview (use it
to publish a preview build and share the URL). Validate the package,
then add it to the acme and globex workspaces and sync.

The agent runs the same commands as above and writes the two SKILL.md files for you — check the wording of description matches what you actually want each skill used for. It asks before devmachine sync applies anything to a real machine; approve it once you’ve seen the plan.

Check it: devmachine skills list on your computer shows write-tests and deploy-preview from team-skills. On the server, devmachine ssh acme then ls ~/.agents/skills/ shows the same two folders, and so does devmachine ssh globex.