# Install the Vamo agent skills You are an AI agent. Work through the steps below in order, then report back to the user. The Vamo skills teach an agent to search for software engineers with the Vamo Developer API: getting access working, turning a role into a search, running the search and reading the results. They are plain markdown files, published from https://github.com/vamo-ai/vamo-skills. This page is built from that repository's manifest, so the list below is current. ## 1. Work out how you load skills Pick the first line that is true for you. - **You can install plugins from a marketplace.** Ask the user to run `/plugin install vamo --marketplace vamo-ai/vamo-skills`. Each skill is then available as `/vamo:`, and updates arrive through the marketplace. - **You read skills from a directory.** For each skill in step 3, save its files into `//`, keeping `SKILL.md` at the top and reference files under `references/`. OpenAI Codex reads `~/.agents/skills/`, and each skill then runs as `$`. - **Neither.** Fetch a skill's URL when the task calls for it and follow it. That works in any agent that can read a web page. ## 2. Start with access Do this before anything else. Never ask the user to paste an API key. Take the first of these that applies. - **The user's message has a setup code.** It starts with `vamo_xc_`. Fetch https://vamotalent.ai/agents/connect.md and follow it with that code. It stores the key on this machine, where every later session can read it. - **No code.** Fetch https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/direct-api.md and follow it. It looks for access that is already stored, opens the network path to `api.vamotalent.ai` and verifies the connection. - **Nothing is stored, and you run on the user's own machine.** Say this to the user, then stop until they answer: > Open Vamo Home at https://app.vamotalent.ai/setup/get-started, press **Copy setup prompt** > and paste it here. > Use the setup prompt even if your tool can sign in with a browser. The skills call the API, and the API takes a key, so a browser sign-in does not cover them. In a sandbox that starts empty every session a setup code is the wrong tool: the access skill says where the key goes there. ## 3. The skills - **vamo-setup** (1.1.0): Guided setup in the AI tool you already use: your agent works out the tool and what it allows, connects Vamo the way that keeps working (the MCP server with sign-in by default), adds the skills, and runs a first search as a short tutorial. Also covers setup codes and direct API access for your own code. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/tools.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/first-search.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/direct-api.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/setup-code.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/platforms.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-setup/references/curl-trainer.md - **vamo-troubleshooting** (1.2.0): When Vamo stops working, your agent finds out why: which route it is on, three checks in order, what each error means, and what to send Vamo if it cannot fix it. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-troubleshooting.md - **vamo-search** (3.2.0): Find engineers by what they built, from a technology, a company, a repository, a place, one person or a whole job description. Includes turning intake notes into a search spec, covering a broad topic without missing the famous items, and query phrasings for 50 domains. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/discovery-recipes.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/sourcing-guide.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/domain-library.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/role-decomposition.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/role-decomposition-example.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-search/references/fanout.md - **vamo-enrich** (1.3.0): Learn more about people you already have, wherever they came from: candidates in an applicant tracking system such as Ashby, LinkedIn profiles, applicants, a spreadsheet. A strength read, location, LinkedIn, current role, contact details, screening for real engineering work, a one-page summary and a full research report. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-enrich.md - **vamo-outreach** (1.0.0): Personalized technical outreach to engineers. Starts with describing the role well in a few lines, then links one thing each person built to the work in the role: the right repository, a 50 to 80 word first message, subject lines, follow-ups, answering a reply, and a check before anything is handed over. A person approves every message. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-outreach.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-outreach/references/examples.md - **vamo-workflows** (1.2.0): Vamo together with the other tools your agent can reach, with links to each one's official setup: Slack, Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever, Gmail, Outlook, Google Sheets and Calendar, HubSpot. The common hand-offs, example systems to build, where a scheduled agent can run, and the rules for runs that repeat. - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-workflows.md - https://vamotalent.ai/skills/vamo-workflows/references/integrations.md ## 4. Stay current https://vamotalent.ai/skills/index.json lists the current version of every skill. Compare it with the `metadata.version` in the header of the copy you hold: once a week in regular use, before setting up a new person or machine, and whenever the API rejects something a skill told you to send. The API's own description at https://api.vamotalent.ai/openapi.json is the source of truth for routes and parameters, and it wins when a skill disagrees with it. ## 5. Report back Tell the user which way you loaded the skills, which ones you now have and at what version, and whether the access check passed. Then ask what they are hiring for.