Connecting a machine

A machine is connected when it has the skilvault client and one of your API keys. The Install page does both in one step.

Connect with one click

Open Install in the sidebar.
Press Connect this machine. SkilVault creates an API key named this machine.

Press Copy command and run it in a terminal on the machine you want to connect:

curl -fsSL -H 'Authorization: Bearer svk_live_…' 'https://your-skilvault-host/api/v1/client/install.sh' | sh

Start a Claude Code session (or run /reload-plugins). Your skills are ready.

What the installer does

The command downloads a short shell script and runs it. The script only writes to your home directory:

Path	What
`~/.local/bin/skilvault`	The client program, shared by every CLI.
`~/.claude/skills/skilvault/SKILL.md` and the same stub under each other CLI	Tells that CLI to run the shared client.
`~/.config/skilvault/config`	Your server address and key. Permissions are set to owner-only (600). Other settings in the file are kept.

It is safe to run again — for example to upgrade the client. It never needs administrator rights.

You can read exactly what it will do first by opening the same address in a browser (without piping it to sh).

Connect by hand

If you would rather not pipe a script into a shell, create a key on the API keys page and set up the config yourself:

~/.config/skilvault/config

SV_HOST="https://your-skilvault-host"
SV_KEY="svk_live_…"

Then install the client by running the installer once without a key (…/api/v1/client/install.sh | sh), which seedsSV_HOST for you and leaves SV_KEY empty for you to fill in.

More than one machine

Give each machine its own key: it makes revoking one machine easy without disturbing the others. Each key counts against your plan's key limit (the free plan allows 1). Press Connect this machine on each new machine, or create keys with a name that says where they are used.

Servers and CI

Create a dedicated key (for example named ci), store it as a secret, and write the config at the start of the job:

CI step

mkdir -p ~/.config/skilvault
printf 'SV_HOST="%s"\nSV_KEY="%s"\n' "$SKILVAULT_HOST" "$SKILVAULT_KEY" > ~/.config/skilvault/config
chmod 600 ~/.config/skilvault/config
curl -fsSL "$SKILVAULT_HOST/api/v1/client/install.sh" | sh
~/.local/bin/skilvault read commit-lint

Keep an eye on your hourly limits if many jobs start at once.

Replace or remove a connection

Replace a key: create the new key first, update the machine, then revoke the old one. On the free plan (1 key) you must revoke the old key before creating a new one, because there is no spare slot.
Disconnect a machine: revoke its key on Install → API keys. The key stops working immediately.