Documentation

Everything you need to know about BoxLang Skills.

Skills are reusable, structured SKILL.md files that teach your AI coding assistant (Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, etc.) how to work with BoxLang, ColdBox, TestBox, and the full Ortus ecosystem.

Each skill file contains frontmatter metadata (name, description, tags) and a rich Markdown body explaining patterns, idioms, best practices, and examples specific to BoxLang development. When you install a skill into your AI agent, it gains deep, accurate knowledge about BoxLang without hallucinating incorrect CFML or Java syntax.

Skills are stored in GitHub repositories — either 🔷 Core skills maintained by the Ortus Solutions team, or 🌐 Community skills submitted by the broader BoxLang community. All community skills are automatically audited for security heuristics before being made available.

There are two main ways to install BoxLang skills into your AI agent:

Option 1 — npx skills CLI

skills.sh is an open-source, agent-agnostic CLI tool for discovering, installing, and managing SKILL.md files across AI coding agents (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and others). It reads the BoxLang Skills Hub catalog, resolves individual skills or entire repositories, security-audits community content, and drops the files into the correct agent directory in one command — no manual copy-paste required. The npx skills command runs it instantly without a global install.

The fastest way — works with any Node.js installation:

$ npx skills add ortus-boxlang/skills
$ npx skills add ortus-boxlang/skills/coldbox-basics
Option 2 — ColdBox CLI

If you have CommandBox and the ColdBox CLI installed:

$ coldbox ai skills install ortus-boxlang/skills/coldbox-basics

After installing, skills are stored in the ~/.ai/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/ directory (or equivalent for your AI agent). Your agent will automatically discover and load them during each conversation.

You can then ask your AI assistant BoxLang-specific questions and it will use the installed skills to provide accurate, idiomatic BoxLang code:

  • Write a ColdBox REST handler with full error handling
  • Create a WireBox-managed singleton service that queries SQLite
  • Show me how to use TestBox to write integration tests
  • Help me configure bx-migrations for my BoxLang app

The AI will answer using patterns and idioms from the installed skill files, rather than relying on scattered (and often outdated) internet training data.

The following Core repositories are officially maintained by the Ortus Solutions team. Skills in these repos are automatically imported, trusted, and skip the community security audit.

Repository Focus Contribute via PR
ortus-boxlang/skills BoxLang language, runtime, BIFs, and core modules Open PR
coldbox/skills ColdBox MVC framework patterns and conventions Open PR
ortus-solutions/skills WireBox, TestBox, LogBox, and Ortus modules Open PR

💡 Want your skill in a core repo?

Open a pull request against any of the repositories above. Add your SKILL.md inside a new folder (e.g. my-feature/SKILL.md), include valid YAML frontmatter, and the Ortus team will review and merge it. Once merged, it will be automatically imported the next time the hub syncs.

Don't want to contribute to a core repo? You can submit your own GitHub repository and have it listed as a 🌐 Community source. Community skills go through automated security auditing before being made available in the directory.

  1. Create a GitHub repository with one or more SKILL.md files, each in its own subfolder (e.g. my-skill/SKILL.md)
  2. Add YAML frontmatter with at minimum name, description, and tags
  3. Write clear, accurate BoxLang documentation in the Markdown body
  4. Submit your repo here or email [email protected]

Once approved, your repository will be added to the hub's import list and synced automatically. You keep full ownership and control of your skills.

For questions or ideas, reach out: [email protected]