Dalo compared with skills.sh and agentfiles

Three tools, three different jobs. Vercel's skills.sh and its skills CLI make it fast to discover and install a public skill into almost any agent. agentfiles gives you a visual place in Obsidian to browse and edit the skills, commands, and rules of many agents. Dalo manages the approved, reproducible skill set that a team delivers to its agents.

This page is a snapshot from September 2026 (skills CLI v1.6.0, agentfiles 0.9.1, Dalo 0.15). All three projects move quickly; if something here is out of date, please open an issue.

At a glance

	Dalo	skills.sh (`skills` CLI)	agentfiles
Kind	CLI with a Rust library core	Node.js CLI plus public directory	Obsidian plugin (desktop)
Main job	Team-wide, reviewed skill delivery	Discover and install skills	Browse and edit agent files visually
Sources	Git repositories, catalogs, private local source	GitHub, GitLab, any Git URL, local paths, archives	skills.sh search, GitHub default branch
Delivery into agents	Symlinks from a Git-backed store	Canonical copy plus symlinks (or `--copy`)	Copies into each agent folder
Version pinning	Lockfiles with exact commits	Branch or tag plus content hash	Records the commit, updates to latest `HEAD`
Updates	Preview drift, then advance explicitly	`skills update` pulls latest content	"Update all" pulls latest `HEAD`
Existing folders	Unmanaged files are never overwritten	Target folder is replaced	Target folder is replaced after install
Review and trust	Security preflight, audits, per-skill approval	Audit pages on skills.sh	None built in
Beyond skills	Instruction packs, portable plugins, approved tools and hooks	Skills only	Views commands, agents, and rules; installs skills only
Agent coverage	5 verified targets plus any folder	About 80 agents	17 tools
Platforms	macOS, Linux	macOS, Linux, Windows	Obsidian desktop
Telemetry	None	Anonymous, on by default, opt-out	None, according to its README
License	MIT or Apache-2.0	MIT	MIT

skills.sh and the `skills` CLI

skills.sh is the public directory for the Agent Skills ecosystem, with install leaderboards, topics, and audit pages. The skills CLI (npx skills add owner/repo) installs SKILL.md folders from GitHub, GitLab, any Git URL, or a local path into about 80 agents, in project or global scope.

What it does well:

Reach. Nearly every agent has a known project and global path, and it also runs on Windows.
Discovery. Search, trending lists, and install counts make it easy to find a skill in the first place.
Low friction. One npx command, no store to set up. skills use even runs a skill without installing it.
Symlinked delivery. By default it keeps one canonical copy in .agents/skills and links it into each agent folder, much like Dalo.

Where the model differs from Dalo:

Pinning. skills-lock.json records a branch or tag and a content hash, not a commit. skills update fetches the latest content for that ref, so two machines can resolve different code from the same lockfile.
Existing content. Installing clears the target directory and replaces an existing folder or link at the agent path. Dalo reports such a path as unmanaged and leaves it alone.
Trust. Nothing asks you to approve a skill before it lands in an agent folder. Dalo requires an explicit selection and approval, and blocks high-severity audit findings during sync.
Telemetry. The CLI sends anonymous usage data by default; set DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 to turn it off.

agentfiles

agentfiles is an Obsidian plugin that turns a vault into a manager for the files of 17 AI tools: Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, Copilot, and more. It also ships a Claude Code conversation browser, a usage dashboard, and an early VS Code extension.

What it does well:

A visual home. Browse, search, create, and edit skills, commands, agents, and rules side by side instead of in hidden dot folders.
Breadth of file types. It shows more than skills, including memories and rules, across many tools at once.
Marketplace on top of skills.sh. It searches skills.sh and installs from GitHub with size limits, path-traversal checks, and rollback on failure.

Where the model differs from Dalo:

Copies, not links. Installs write a copy into ~/.agents/skills and into each chosen agent folder, so copies can drift apart.
Latest, not pinned. It records the installed commit in the skills lock format, but updating always resolves the default branch's current HEAD.
Personal scope. There is no team manifest, source priority, or approval step; it is built for one person's vault and machine.
Replaces existing folders. An existing target folder is moved aside and deleted once the new install succeeds.

When to use which

Use skills.sh to find skills and to try one quickly, especially on Windows or in an agent Dalo does not target yet.
Use agentfiles if you live in Obsidian and want to read and edit what all your agents are loading, in one visual place.
Use Dalo when skills are team knowledge: several people or machines need the same reviewed set, upstream changes must not arrive silently, and local experiments and hand-written agent files must stay untouched.

They also combine. A repository you found on skills.sh is a normal Git repository, so Dalo can pin it as a catalog and deliver only the skills you select and approve:

dalo source add-catalog public https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills.git
dalo source inspect public

Sources

skills CLI: README and the installer, local-lock, skill-lock, update, and telemetry modules in vercel-labs/skills, v1.6.0
skills.sh: directory and leaderboard
agentfiles: README, manifest.json, and src/marketplace.ts in Railly/agentfiles, 0.9.1
Dalo: README, command reference, and agent integration