/browse-and-evaluate

name: browse-and-evaluate
description: Use when exploring the ai-agent-skills catalog to find, compare, and evaluate skills before installing. Always use --fields to limit output size and --dry-run before committing to an install.
category: workflow
version: 4.1.0

Browse And Evaluate

Goal

Find the right skill for a task without flooding the context window or installing blindly.

Guardrails

• Always use `--fields` on list/search/info to keep output small. Default: `--fields name,tier,workArea,description`.
• Always use `--dry-run` before installing anything.
• Never install more than 3 skills at once without explicit user confirmation.
• Prefer `--format json` in non-interactive pipelines. The CLI defaults to JSON when stdout is not a TTY.
• Use `--limit` when browsing large catalogs. Start with `--limit 10`.

Workflow

1. Search or browse the catalog.

npx ai-agent-skills search <query> --fields name,tier,workArea,description --limit 10

2. Get details on a candidate.

npx ai-agent-skills info <skill-name> --fields name,description,tags,collections,installCommands

3. Preview the skill content.

npx ai-agent-skills preview <skill-name>

4. Dry-run the install.

npx ai-agent-skills install <skill-name> --dry-run

5. Install only after reviewing the dry-run output.

npx ai-agent-skills install <skill-name>

Gotchas

• The `preview` command sanitizes skill content to strip prompt injection patterns. If content looks truncated, check if suspicious patterns were removed.
• Collection installs pull multiple skills. Always `--list` or `--dry-run` a collection before installing.
• Upstream (non-vendored) skills require a network fetch at install time. Use `--dry-run` to verify the source is reachable.