How to Install OpenClaw Skills

The command you want, almost always:

openclaw skills install @owner/skill-name

That installs from ClawHub into the active workspace's skills/ directory. Everything below is the detail that decides where a skill actually lands, whether you can update it later, and what to check before you run it at all.

Verify before you install

ClawHub's registry is open — anyone with a GitHub account past the upload gate can publish. Before installing something you haven't read:

openclaw skills verify @owner/skill-name
openclaw skills verify @owner/skill-name --card

verify asks ClawHub for the skill's clawhub.skill.verify.v1 trust envelope, and "exits non-zero when ClawHub marks verification as failed." --card prints the generated Skill Card.

That's a signal, not a guarantee — OpenClaw's own documentation is blunt about it: "Treat third-party skills as untrusted code. Read them before enabling." What the audits do and don't catch is covered on the security page.

Finding a skill

openclaw skills search "postgres backups"
openclaw skills search "calendar"

Or browse clawhub.ai directly, which shows the current audit state on each listing before you install.

Every install form

All documented, with the destination each one writes to:

--global is the flag that matters most in a multi-agent setup: it installs "into the shared ~/.openclaw/skills directory, visible to all local agents unless agent allowlists narrow it."

Two details for Git and local installs: SKILL.md must be at the source root, and the slug comes from the frontmatter name when valid, falling back to the directory or repository name. --as <slug> overrides it.

The two commands that look alike

This is the trap worth knowing about, and it isn't mentioned in any install guide we found.

OpenClaw ships openclaw skills install. ClawHub also ships a standalone CLI with its own clawhub install. They are not the same command with a different prefix:

If you run clawhub install from your home directory expecting your agent to pick the skill up, you'll get ~/skills — which is not one of the six directories OpenClaw scans.

Install the standalone CLI only when you need registry auth, publishing, or delete/undelete:

npm i -g clawhub
clawhub login

Updating

openclaw skills update --all              # every workspace skill
openclaw skills update @owner/<slug> --global
openclaw skills update --all --global

One documented limitation that decides how you should install things in the first place: openclaw skills update "tracks ClawHub installs only — reinstall Git or local sources to refresh them."

So a skill installed from git:owner/repo@ref is frozen until you reinstall it by hand. If you expect to keep something current and it exists on ClawHub, install it from ClawHub.

Checking what loaded

openclaw skills list
openclaw skills check

openclaw skills check is also what OpenClaw points you at when the skills block has been compacted to fit the prompt budget — see what skills cost.

If a skill you just installed isn't showing up, the usual cause isn't the install. OpenClaw "snapshots eligible skills when a session starts," so start a new session:

/new                        # from chat
openclaw gateway restart    # or restart the gateway

The other common cause is gating: a skill declaring requires.bins or an os filter it can't satisfy on your machine is loaded and then filtered out deliberately. That's the system working — install the missing binary, or check the skill's metadata.openclaw block.

Bringing skills from another agent

From Claude Code, there's a migration path:

openclaw migrate claude --dry-run
openclaw migrate apply claude --yes

Skills with a SKILL.md are copied over structurally unchanged; .claude/commands/ files are converted into skills with disable-model-invocation: true. Details of what does and doesn't transfer are on the overview page.

From Codex, there's a separate one, because Codex's directory is explicitly not an OpenClaw root:

openclaw migrate plan codex
openclaw migrate codex

Without migrating at all: ~/.agents/skills is one of OpenClaw's six roots and also a native location for Codex and Cursor. A skill kept there is shared across all three with no copying.

Private and non-ClawHub delivery

For teams that need to distribute skills without publishing them, Gateway clients can stage a zip archive (skills.upload.begin, skills.upload.chunk, skills.upload.commit) then install with skills.install({ source: "upload", ... }).

This is off by default and requires skills.install.allowUploadedArchives: true in openclaw.json. Normal ClawHub installs never need that setting — if a guide tells you to enable it for a routine install, something is wrong.

Caveats

• We have not installed or run OpenClaw. Every command and destination here is taken from the official documentation, and quoted where the precise wording matters.
• Install destinations, update tracking, and the clawhub CLI's separate behavior are documented as of August 2026. OpenClaw is under very active development.
• openclaw skills verify reflects ClawHub's audit state at the time you run it. It is not an audit performed by us.

Sources

• OpenClaw — Skills (official docs) — install forms, destinations, update tracking, verification, private archives
• OpenClaw — ClawHub (official docs) — the clawhub CLI and its separate install destination
• OpenClaw — Creating skills (official docs) — session refresh behavior
• OpenClaw — Migrating from Claude (official docs) — migration commands