Migrating from Vercel skills to rolecraft

If you're using Vercel's skills CLI and considering a switch, here's everything you need to know.

Why switch?

Reason	rolecraft	Vercel skills
Dependencies	0 (zero-dep)	1 (supports-color)
Agent targets	90	72
Telemetry	None	Anonymous telemetry
Offline installs	Fully supported	Requires network
Shell completions	bash, zsh, fish	Not available
System health check	rolecraft doctor	Not available
Self-upgrade	rolecraft upgrade	Not available

Quick migration

# 1. Install rolecraft
npm install -g rolecraft

# 2. List your currently installed skills
npx skills list

# 3. Reinstall each skill with rolecraft
rolecraft install user/repo --all

# 4. Verify everything is in place
rolecraft list
rolecraft doctor

# 5. (Optional) Drop the old lockfile — both tools share the same file,
#    so only do this once rolecraft has everything installed.
rm ~/.skills-lock.json

Command mapping

Vercel skills	rolecraft equivalent
npx skills add user/repo	rolecraft install user/repo
npx skills list	rolecraft list
npx skills remove slug	rolecraft remove slug
npx skills init	rolecraft init
npx skills find	rolecraft search
--yes / -y	--yes / -y
--copy	default (copy mode)
--symlink	--symlink
--cursor / --claude etc.	--cursor / --claude etc.

What rolecraft does differently

More agent targets

rolecraft supports 90 agents vs Vercel's 72. This includes newer agents like augment, kilo, openhands, junie, factory, command-code, oh-my-pi (omp), and more.

Any source, not just GitHub

Install from local folders, GitLab, Bitbucket, SSH URLs, or even npm packages — not just GitHub repos.

Health checks

rolecraft doctor

Diagnoses Node.js version, agent directories, lockfile integrity, and skill health in one command.

No vendor lock-in

rolecraft doesn't require a marketplace, a signup, or any external service. It works fully offline and stores everything locally.

Rollback

If you need to go back to Vercel skills:

# Uninstall the skills you migrated in, one at a time.
rolecraft list
rolecraft remove <slug>

# Then reinstall with Vercel
npx skills add user/repo --all

Both tools read the same ~/.agents/skills/ directory and write the same lockfile format, so skills installed by one are discoverable by the other.

Do not rm -rf ~/.agents. That path is the global skills directory for a dozen or more agents, so deleting it wipes every skill they have — including ones you never migrated. Use rolecraft remove <slug>, or rolecraft rollback --list to restore a snapshot taken before the migration.

See also

• rolecraft install — reinstall your skills under rolecraft.
• rolecraft remove — take skills back out.
• rolecraft rollback — undo a migration in one command.
• Feature Comparison — what you gain by switching.