← Back to Documentation

Getting Started

Set up SkillSea after installation and sync your first skills with Claude Code.

Prerequisites: SkillSea binary installed and available in your PATH. See the Installation Guide if you haven't installed it yet.

Step 1: Add MCP Server Configuration

Add SkillSea to your project's .mcp.json file so Claude Code can communicate with it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "skillsea": {
      "command": "skillsea",
      "args": ["--transport", "stdio"],
      "env": {
        "NEO4J_URI": "bolt://your-neo4j-host:7687",
        "NEO4J_USERNAME": "neo4j",
        "NEO4J_PASSWORD": "your-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using SkillSea Cloud?

If you have a SkillSea Cloud subscription, your Neo4j credentials are available in the Portal Dashboard. Use the connection string provided there.

Step 2: Install Hooks

Hooks enable automatic skill syncing. When you type a prompt, SkillSea finds and loads relevant skills before Claude processes it.

# Install hooks for the current project
skillsea hook install --scope local
# Or install globally for all projects
skillsea hook install --scope global

This installs two hooks: a UserPromptSubmit hook for skill syncing and a SessionStart hook for update notifications. Restart Claude Code after installing.

Step 3: Activate License (Optional)

SkillSea works in trial mode without a license (fulltext search, up to 10 skills). Activate a license to unlock semantic search, Text2Cypher, more skills, and team features.

# Activate with your license key
skillsea license activate YOUR_LICENSE_KEY
# Check status
skillsea license status
# See available features
skillsea license features

You can also set the license via environment variable: KEYGEN_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_KEY. See Licensing & Tiers for details.

Step 4: Verify Connection

skillsea hook status --warmup

This checks your Neo4j connection and optionally warms up the embedding model for faster semantic search. You should see:

=== SkillSea Status ===
Embedding Backend:
Local model available: True
Model: all-MiniLM-L6-v2
Neo4j Connection:
URI: bolt://your-host:7687
Status: Connected ✓

Step 5: Start Using It

Open Claude Code in your project directory and start working. Skills will automatically sync based on your prompts.

How It Works

1
You type a prompt
"Help me commit these changes with a good message"
2
Hook triggers SkillSea
The UserPromptSubmit hook sends your prompt to SkillSea for matching
3
Skills are synced
Matching skills (like "git-commit", "conventional-commits") are downloaded to .claude/skills/skillsea/
4
Claude uses the skills
Claude Code loads the skills and follows their instructions to help you better

Keeping Up to Date

SkillSea notifies you of updates automatically via the SessionStart hook. You can also check manually:

skillsea update

To update, re-run the install script. It will download and replace the current binary.

Next Steps

CLI Reference →MCP Tools →Search Strategies →← Back to Docs