Use Dalo through your agent
The Dalo skill lets you manage your skills by talking to the agent you already use. Ask it to inspect your setup, bring existing skills under Dalo, preserve your own changes, or update an existing installation. The agent runs Dalo and explains the result; you do not need to remember its commands.
The skill lives in skills/dalo. It contains
instructions and supporting references, with no separate model, API key, server,
or background service. The agent needs filesystem access and permission to run
commands for changes. It can inspect existing folders before Dalo is installed.
Start with an ordinary request
Tell your local coding agent: “Install the Dalo skill manager.” The official website and repository point to the agent installation guide, which takes the agent through installing the binary and making the assistant available. You do not need a Dalo skill first, a special prompt, or a second skill manager. The agent needs web or repository access to find the instructions and local command access to perform the installation.
Discovery depends on the host's tools; if it cannot identify the project, give it dalo.sh. The site's llms.txt is an additional documentation index. The same installation path is linked from normal HTML and the README, so it does not depend on automatic llms.txt support.
Bundled installation
On an ordinary interactive invocation, including bare dalo and after dalo init, Dalo checks the assistant locally. If it is missing or differs from the
running binary's bundle, Dalo offers to install or update it with a [y/N]
question. Only y or yes applies the change; Enter, no, and end of input keep
it unchanged. With no store yet, the question explicitly includes creating the
store. Declining leaves the offer available on the next invocation. A current
bundle needs no question.
The check uses the installed binary's contents, not the latest internet release. Modified bundles and discovered external installations receive a diagnostic instead of an overwrite offer. The check also distinguishes local installation from delivery: a current local skill can still need a target link or sync. Accepting an offer prepares the local skill; it never silently syncs the whole store or selects an agent for you. Existing links to an updated bundle see it immediately.
JSON, redirected input/output, dry runs, CI, automation checks, and background
hook/tool/scheduler commands never ask questions. Set DALO_ASSISTANT_CHECK=never
to disable the automatic terminal offer. Agents can read
dalo assistant status --json (also included as assistant in status --json)
and ask in their own conversation. The skill checks this on each new invocation
and does not repeat a declined offer for every command in the same task.
Every binary built with assistant support includes the complete skill. After installing Dalo, a fresh setup follows these steps (Codex is an example):
dalo init
dalo target detect
dalo target link codex
dalo assistant install
dalo --dry-run sync
dalo sync --check
For an existing setup, keep its store and target paths and inspect it first.
assistant install installs the bundled skill into local/skills/dalo without
network access, a Git commit, target changes, or a full sync. The subsequent
sync uses ordinary Dalo audits and ownership checks. Review its whole-store
preview: existing team sources may refresh, and all configured targets receive
active skills. Other skills are not adopted as part of installation.
Run dalo assistant install again after upgrading the binary to update an
unmodified bundle. Its versioned receipt protects local changes, additional
files, and foreign symlinks from replacement. Existing target links expose an
updated bundle immediately. A different or customized local dalo skill must
be preserved and deliberately moved before that slot can hold a bundle.
A foreign assistant in an agent folder also remains untouched. The assistant
can help plan a handover, but the installer does not take ownership of it. Once
the files are delivered, the agent can read dalo/SKILL.md to continue the same
conversation. If native discovery is delayed, reload skills or start a new
session as required by that host.
Other installation routes
On a release without dalo assistant install, upgrade through your existing
installation channel or install the complete skills/dalo
folder through your agent's skill installer. Keep references and agents
alongside SKILL.md. For example, with the
skills CLI:
npx skills add sebastian-software/dalo --skill dalo --agent codex --global
To try unpublished work from this repository checkout:
npx skills add ./skills/dalo --skill dalo --agent codex --global
For Claude Code, use --agent claude-code. This route installs the skill first;
ask it to set up Dalo and it can install the missing binary. Installing the skill
alone does not migrate existing folders. Keep its installer ownership explicit
if you later switch to the bundled route.
Talk to Dalo
Select the Dalo skill in your agent, or use its skill invocation syntax, such as
$dalo in Codex. You can then ask in your own language:
- “Dalo, what is installed and what needs attention?”
- “I used skills.sh before. Move these skills to Dalo and keep my changes.”
- “Bring my own skills under version control without sharing them publicly.”
- “I installed Dalo months ago. Get this setup working again.”
- “Update my skills and explain anything that needs a decision.”
- “Make the same skills available in Claude Code.”
A bare invocation starts with a local assessment and a suggested next step. It does not install software or change your setup. A concrete request continues through the relevant work, asking about choices that cannot be inferred, such as two different versions of a skill with the same name.
What the assistant accounts for
It combines Dalo's reports with inspection of relevant existing skill folders. This includes folders not linked to Dalo, shared symlinks, project-only skills, and available installer metadata. Missing permissions and uncertain provenance remain visible instead of being treated as an empty installation.
For migration, the assistant distinguishes a preserved local snapshot from a skill reconnected to an upstream repository. A snapshot keeps your content but does not receive upstream updates. Installer metadata helps identify a source; it does not prove that your local copy is unchanged or grant Dalo approval.
Real skill directories can use Dalo's audited adoption flow. Foreign symlinks need an explicit handover with preserved content and recovery paths. The assistant reports anything that remains managed by another installer, including old lock records that might still cause that installer to update migrated paths. Project-only skills stay a separate scope; moving them to a user-level target would make them available in other projects too.
The assistant uses the capabilities of the installed Dalo version. It does not add a native import command, first-class project profiles, or automatic foreign lockfile conversion. It cannot guarantee that every unknown installer layout can be migrated automatically. Dalo's own protections still enforce approvals, dirty-source handling, and ownership during CLI operations; any necessary manual handover is prepared and verified separately.
See Getting started for the command-line path and Troubleshooting for diagnostic details.
Source: docs/assistant.md