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FeaturesSidekickUpdated March 11, 2026

ClawHub Skill Import & Parser

ClawHub Skill Import & Parser

Sidekick 1.0.21 introduces native import support for skills published on ClawHub, the community skill registry for OpenClaw-compatible agents. Any of ClawHub's 13,000+ skills can be imported into Sidekick by slug or URL — no manual configuration required.

Importing a Skill

Skills can be imported two ways:

By slug

summarize-email
github-pr-reviewer
daily-standup-bot

By full ClawHub URL

https://clawhub.io/skills/summarize-email
https://clawhub.io/skills/github-pr-reviewer

Once you provide the slug or URL, Sidekick fetches the skill's SKILL.md file, parses it, validates compatibility, and installs it — all in one step.

SKILL.md Format

Sidekick's parser supports the standard SKILL.md format used across the ClawHub ecosystem. A valid SKILL.md consists of two sections:

1. YAML Frontmatter

Contains structured metadata about the skill.

---
name: summarize-email
version: 1.2.0
author: clawhub-community
description: Summarises unread emails and surfaces action items.
requires:
  env:
    - OPENAI_API_KEY
  binaries:
    - ffmpeg
---

2. Markdown Instruction Body

Follows the frontmatter and contains the natural-language or structured instructions that define what the skill does and how it behaves at runtime.

## Instructions

Every morning at 8 AM, scan the user's inbox for unread emails received
in the last 24 hours. For each email, produce a one-sentence summary and
identify any action items. Group results by sender and deliver a digest
to the user's preferred notification channel.

Requirement Extraction

During import, Sidekick automatically extracts all requirements declared in the skill's frontmatter.

Environment Variables

Any env entries listed under requires are extracted and matched against the environment variables already configured in your Sidekick account. If a required variable is missing, Sidekick prompts you to supply it before completing the install.

Binary Dependencies

Sidekick is a fully cloud-hosted platform — there are no local binaries to install. Any binaries entries declared in a skill's SKILL.md are automatically translated to equivalent Sidekick cloud services at import time. For example, a skill that lists ffmpeg as a binary dependency will be wired to Sidekick's hosted media-processing service transparently. You do not need to install anything on your own machine.

Compatibility Validation

Before a skill is installed, Sidekick runs a compatibility check:

  1. Env var resolution — All required environment variables must be present or provided.
  2. Binary translation — All binary dependencies must have a known cloud-service equivalent.
  3. Connected service check — If a skill requires a specific integration (e.g. Gmail, GitHub), that integration must be connected to your account.

If any check fails, Sidekick surfaces a descriptive error and halts the import. No partial installation occurs.

OpenClaw Compatibility

Sidekick is fully compatible with the OpenClaw SKILL.md standard. Skills authored for self-hosted OpenClaw agents can be imported into Sidekick without modification. Binary and local-environment requirements that exist because OpenClaw runs on a user's own machine are handled automatically by the cloud translation layer.

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