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Skill Dependencies & Discovery

Skill Dependencies & Discovery

The dependencies and discovery workflow provides capabilities to search, inspect, download, verify, and compile skills for agent consumption in local and cloud environments.

cstr search performs semantic vector similarity search when querying a remote Castor Registry instance, or keyword/reference pattern matching when scanning locally.

# Multi-Modal vector search against central Castor Registry
cstr search "canvas image rendering raster" --remote

# Paginated remote search with bounded page sizes (1 to 25)
cstr search "database migration sql" --remote --page 1 --max 5

# Local filesystem search in .skills directory
cstr search "oauth token" -d ./skills

# Machine-readable JSON output
cstr search "kubernetes helm" --remote --json

Remote Vector Search Output Example 

Castor Remote Search Results for 'canvas image rendering raster' (1 matches on http://localhost:8000)
===========================================================================
Page 1 of 1 (Total matching skills: 1, Page size: 5)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- canvas-image (v1.0.0) [castor://skills/sk-0797300c]
  Description: Canvas image processing and pixel manipulation utilities for raster graphics
  Tags: canvas, image, rendering, raster, 2d

2. Skill Listing (cstr list)

cstr list displays all skills registered on a remote Castor Registry server or installed in a local directory.

# List remote server skills with pagination
cstr list --remote --page 1 --max 5

# List local skills in target directory
cstr list -d ./skills

# Structured JSON output
cstr list --remote --json

Bounded Pagination Enforcement

Remote requests to /api/v1/skills enforce strict abuse prevention and pagination bounds:

  • --page (-p): 1-based page number (minimum 1).
  • --max / --page-size (-n): Maximum results per page (default: 5, maximum: 25).
  • The server injects standard pagination response headers: X-Total-Count, X-Page, X-Page-Size, and X-Total-Pages.

3. Adding Dependencies (cstr add)

Fetch and install skills into .skills/ (or -d <path>), generating a .manifest.lock with cryptographic SHA-256 digests:

# Add registered enterprise skill from central server
cstr add castor://skills/sk-9b1deb4d

# Add from GitHub repository (branch, tag, or commit ref)
cstr add github://retail-cortex/castor@main/packages/skills-python

# Add from Go module cache
cstr add mod://github.com/retail-cortex/castor@v1.0.0/packages/skills-go

# Add from Java Maven artifact
cstr add maven://com.retailcortex.castor:skills-java:1.0.0

# Add from local filesystem directory with force overwrite
cstr add file:///path/to/my-skill -d ./skills --force

# Update .manifest.lock without copying files
cstr add github://retail-cortex/castor@main/packages/skills-devops --manifest-only

Polyglot URI Resolution Schemes

Scheme Example Description
castor:// / cstr:// castor://skills/sk-9b1deb4d Resolves registered enterprise skills from central Castor Registry.
github:// github://owner/repo[@ref][/path] Fetches git trees via git clone or GitHub API zipballs.
mod:// mod://module_path[@version][/path] Resolves via $GOPATH/pkg/mod or go mod download.
maven:// maven://groupId:artifactId:version Resolves from ~/.m2/repository or mvn dependency:get.
pkg:// pkg://package-name Resolves workspace packages within local Bazel runfiles.
file:// file:///path/to/skill Resolves directly from local filesystem paths.

4. Integrity Verification (cstr verify)

Cryptographically audit installed skills against .manifest.lock to detect tampering or drift:

# Verify integrity of all installed skills
cstr verify -d ./skills

# Generate structured JSON integrity report for CI/CD gates
cstr verify -d ./skills --json

5. Manifest Compilation (cstr compile)

Compile skills into a pre-compiled skills_manifest.json for zero-I/O cold starts in serverless or container runtimes:

# Compile skills directory into manifest
cstr compile -d ./skills -o ./skills_manifest.json
gdoc_arrow_left_alt Skill Registration Scaffolding & SDLC Audit gdoc_arrow_right_alt