Gemini CLI
Gemini CLI has a native skills system. User-level skills live at ~/.gemini/skills/. Workspace-level skills live at .gemini/skills/ or .agents/skills/ (in the project root).
Make sure you’ve done the one-time setup first (clone the repo, export REPO).
Install
mkdir -p ~/.gemini/skills
ln -s "$REPO/plugins/rest-api-design/skills/rest-api-design" \
~/.gemini/skills/rest-api-design
ln -s "$REPO/plugins/structured-code-review/skills/structured-code-review" \
~/.gemini/skills/structured-code-review
Or, via the canonical-home pattern:
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills ~/.gemini/skills
ln -s "$REPO/plugins/rest-api-design/skills/rest-api-design" ~/.agents/skills/rest-api-design
ln -s "$REPO/plugins/structured-code-review/skills/structured-code-review" ~/.agents/skills/structured-code-review
ln -s ../../.agents/skills/rest-api-design ~/.gemini/skills/rest-api-design
ln -s ../../.agents/skills/structured-code-review ~/.gemini/skills/structured-code-review
How Gemini loads skills
At session start, Gemini loads skill metadata (frontmatter only, not the full body). The full SKILL.md body is activated on demand via the activate_skill tool when a task matches the skill’s description.
Same progressive-disclosure pattern Claude Code uses. The skill body doesn’t bloat the system prompt unless it’s actually relevant.
Verifying
In a fresh Gemini CLI session, ask Gemini to list available skills, or drop a prompt that should trigger one (see Install Verifying it works).