Install the skills

decktalk init installs the six skills into a new project by default. Pass --no-skills to leave them out.

decktalk init my-video

The folders

The skills are written once, into one generic folder, and a second folder points at it.

Path	What it is
`.agents/skills/decktalk-<name>/SKILL.md`	The skills themselves, in the folder the Agent Skills format names for sharing between clients.
`.claude/skills`	A link to `.agents/skills`, because Claude Code reads its own folder and not the generic one.

On a machine where a link cannot be made, which is usually Windows without the privilege for one, init writes a copy instead of a link. The copy holds the same files, and it has to be written again when the skills change. Do not commit a second copy of a skill under another name. Several harnesses read both folders, and two copies of one skill is the case where a harness has to guess.

Which harness reads which folder

Every harness below loads a SKILL.md natively. The folders are the ones each harness documents for a project.

Harness	Project folders it reads
Claude Code	`.claude/skills/`
OpenAI Codex	`.agents/skills/`
Cursor	`.agents/skills/`, `.cursor/skills/`, `.claude/skills/`
GitHub Copilot and VS Code	`.github/skills/`, `.claude/skills/`, `.agents/skills/`
Gemini CLI	`.gemini/skills/`, `.agents/skills/`
Windsurf	`.windsurf/skills/`, `.agents/skills/`
opencode	`.opencode/skills/`, `.claude/skills/`, `.agents/skills/`
Amp	`.agents/skills/`, `.claude/skills/`
Goose	`.agents/skills/`, `.goose/skills/`, `.claude/skills/`

The two folders that init writes reach every harness in that table. .agents/skills/ reaches eight of them, and .claude/skills reaches Claude Code, which is the one harness that does not read the generic folder.

DeckTalk tests its skills on Claude Code alone. The release test is a trigger run over Claude Code and a build made from the skills alone. Every other harness in the table is supported through the generic folder and is untested, because the founder does not run it. A skill that misfires on another harness is worth a GitHub Discussions post, and it is not a case DeckTalk can reproduce.

Why the skills use no harness-specific fields

DeckTalk skills use only the fields the open format defines, which are name, description, license, compatibility and metadata. Several harnesses add fields of their own, and a field that one harness honours and another ignores gives one skill two behaviours. Some services also reject a skill whose front matter carries a key they do not know. The cost of that choice is that no front-matter field can mark a skill as user-only, so the guards against spending live in the skill text and in the CLI. Agent skills lists them.