NETCASE Agent Skills — cortex

A collection of Agent Skills maintained by NETCASE GmbH, plus a profile-based installer (cortex) for replaying curated skill bundles on every machine.

Two roles in one repo:

1. Skill source — skills/ contains the skills NETCASE publishes. Install them anywhere with npx skills add NETCASE/cortex. No clone needed.
2. Installer — profiles/ + scripts/ is YOUR machine setup. It pulls curated bundles (NETCASE + upstream) into the right scope on each machine. Requires cloning the repo.

For implementation details, code references, and how to extend cortex, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

Install

# Prereqs
brew install jq node                                                   # jq required; node for npx

# Clone & register the alias
gh repo clone NETCASE/cortex ~/Documents/NETCASE/Code/cortex
cd ~/Documents/NETCASE/Code/cortex
bash install.sh                                                        # adds `cortex` alias to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
source ~/.zshrc                                                        # or open a new terminal

# Install the system profile (globally, for every detected agent)
cortex install system

install.sh is idempotent and conflict-aware: re-running it does nothing if the alias is already in place, and it refuses to overwrite an existing alias cortex= line that points elsewhere.

In any project that needs framework-specific skills:

cd ~/Code/my-project
cortex install dev                          # writes ./.claude/skills/ + ./.cortex.json
git add .cortex.json && git commit          # commit the manifest so others get the same setup

Commands

cortex install [-v] [<profile>]	Install all sources from profiles/<profile>.json. No <profile> → numbered picker. Default prints a compact summary; -v / --verbose streams the full skills.sh output.
cortex status	List installed skills. BY column: cortex (in manifest, per-agent symlink), universal (managed skill, accessible to a detected universal-mode agent via the canonical store), or ext (not in any manifest). Universal agents are detected at render time from the bundled registry.
cortex detect-agents	Show which agents skills.sh auto-detect would target on this machine.
cortex --help	Help.

cortex update and cortex remove are placeholders for now — use npx skills update and npx skills remove <name> directly.

Profiles

A profile is profiles/<name>.json. Schema:

{
  "name": "system",
  "sources": [
    { "source": "anthropics/skills", "scope": "global", "skills": ["skill-creator"] },
    { "source": "NETCASE/cortex",   "scope": "global" }
  ]
}

Field	Required	Meaning
source	yes	A skill source (see formats below)
scope	yes	"global" (→ ~/.agents/skills/) or "project" (→ $PWD/.claude/skills/)
skills	no	Specific skill names; omit = whole source
agents	no	Specific agent IDs; omit = auto-detect (or CORTEX_AGENTS env)

Source formats

Pattern	Provider	Example
owner/name	github (via skills.sh)	"anthropics/skills"
https://…, git@…, ssh://…, git://…	git	"git@bitbucket.org:org/skills.git"
/abs/path, ~/rel, ./rel	local filesystem	"~/work/my-draft"

Any URL git clone accepts works — including private repos on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket (cloud and self-hosted). Authentication is handled by your normal git setup (ssh-agent or credential helper); cortex doesn't store credentials.

Common tasks

Add a new source to a profile

Edit profiles/<name>.json, append to sources, re-run cortex install <name>. Idempotent — existing sources are refreshed, the new one is added.

Install only some skills from a multi-skill repo

{ "source": "anthropics/skills", "scope": "global", "skills": ["skill-creator"] }

Install for specific agents only

Per source (highest precedence):

{ "source": "NETCASE/cortex", "scope": "global", "agents": ["claude-code", "qwen-code"] }

Per run (applies to sources without their own agents):

CORTEX_AGENTS=claude-code,qwen-code cortex install system

Develop a skill locally before publishing

{ "source": "~/work/my-draft-skill", "scope": "project" }

Share a project's skill setup

Commit .cortex.json and the profile. Collaborators run cortex install <profile> in the project root and get the exact same setup.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
jq not found	brew install jq
Invalid JSON in profiles/<name>.json	Run jq . profiles/<name>.json to find the bad line
unrecognized source format	Check format — owner/name, full URL, or path with .//~/// prefix
fatal: Authentication failed (HTTPS)	Configure git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain and use an app password / PAT
Permission denied (publickey) (SSH)	Add your key to the host, ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, test with ssh -T git@<host>
Skill shows as ext in status	Not in the manifest — it was installed outside cortex. Add the source to a profile and re-run cortex install <profile> to track it.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for more on what cortex tracks, how BY is computed, and edge cases.

Available skills

• netcase-bbq — Socratic stress-test of a plan or design, ending with a written decision register.
• skill-publish — Publish a local Agent Skill folder to the NETCASE/cortex GitHub repository so it becomes installable via npx skills add NETCASE/cortex.

Adding a new skill

1. Create skills/<name>/SKILL.md (spec).
2. Use the skill-publish skill — it validates, commits, pushes, and verifies installation.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.