Make a guided setup script

Watch

Skill Vault video planned · Video planned

Install

Public release v0.1.2 — install the latest source or pin the tested release.

Install latest

npx skills@latest add MattEspo23/skills --skill wizard

Reproducible install

npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill wizard

Clean installs are verified for Codex and Claude Code. The installer copies editable files into the selected agent; review every Skill before giving it tool access.

This is the public, editable adapted baseline. Its deeper Espo-specific revision and Skill Vault video are planned; the released source can be installed now.

What it does

wizard generates an interactive bash script that walks a human, step by step, through a manual procedure — wiring up third-party services, running a one-off migration, moving a project from state A to state B. It opens each URL, says what to click and copy, captures what comes back, and writes it into .env files and GitHub Actions secrets.

The agent writes the script; it never runs it. You do, on your own machine. So a wizard is not a list of instructions you follow — it is a program that drives the procedure and holds the state, and your part is to click, paste, and press Enter.

When to reach for it

You can type /wizard, and the agent can also reach for it on its own. When it hits a step you have to take — a key it can't mint, a dashboard it can't click — it builds you a wizard instead of writing the instructions into the chat, where they scroll away.

Reach for it when the next thing blocking you is a trip through a dashboard:

Don't reach for it to decide what to build; for that, grill-with-docs and to-spec are the tools.

Prerequisites

None to generate one. The wizard it writes runs on bash, and uses gh when a stage sets a GitHub secret or variable. If gh is missing or unauthenticated, that stage becomes a warning and the closing summary tells you what to set by hand, instead of failing the run.

Stages

A stage is one focused task on one screen. The script clears the terminal between stages, so a stage that overflows the screen loses the part that scrolled away. You author stages in dependency order and set TOTAL_STAGES, which drives the progress display.

Scoping happens before a line is written. The skill reads the repo instead of asking cold: .env*, docker-compose*, framework config, and every secrets.* / vars.* reference in .github/workflows/ — each of those is a value the wizard has to produce. It then shows you the ordered stage list to confirm, and only after that maps each stage to the exact path a human follows ("Dashboard → Developers → API keys → Reveal test key → copy"). Where it doesn't know the current UI, it asks you or checks the docs rather than inventing clicks.

For each captured value, scoping settles where it lands:

The template already solves the UX

The template ships the whole experience: progress with time remaining, confirmation gates, cross-platform URL opening including WSL, hidden entry for secrets, idempotent .env upserts, gh secret / gh variable writes, and a closing summary of everything it had to skip. Everything above the STAGES marker is a fixed library, identical in every wizard and never hand-edited. The consistency is the point. Your job is only to scope the procedure and author its stages.

The agent that writes a wizard never runs it end to end, because it opens browsers and waits for human input. It verifies statically instead: bash -n, shellcheck where available, and a trace that every value lands where scoping said it would, with every set_secret name matching a real secrets.* reference in CI. Set your expectations accordingly — the first run is yours, and that run is the test.

Ephemeral by default

Common questions

Do my API keys end up in the model's context?

No. The agent writes a script; it doesn't run it. You run the script yourself, and it captures the key with hidden terminal entry and writes it straight to .env or gh secret. The wizard is a CLI, and the model is not connected to it. One caveat: that holds for values the wizard captures at runtime. If you paste a key into the chat while scoping the procedure, it's in the context like any other pasted text.

Can I go back and fix a value I mistyped?

Not mid-run. There is no back button — the stages run forward, and a wrong answer on stage 3 means Ctrl-C and re-run. Re-running is cheap by design: any value already written to .env is offered back as a default, so you press Enter through the stages you got right and retype only the wrong one. This came up in the launch week and hasn't been closed since: "loved it! One thing though — is there a way to go back and correct what you've entered?"

There's a related open bug. Arrow keys in an ask prompt insert ^[[D / ^[[C instead of moving the cursor, because the prompt uses read -r rather than Readline (issue #741). Backspace works; arrow keys don't. Delete back to the mistake rather than moving the cursor into it.

Does it know what I've already set up?

Partly, and less than the launch reactions assumed. It reads the repo before it asks — your .env files, docker-compose, framework config, the secrets.* references in CI — so it scopes to values that are genuinely missing rather than starting from zero the way a README does. What it doesn't do is check the third-party service. If a key exists in your .env the wizard offers it back and Enter keeps it; if you already created the Stripe account but never saved the key, the wizard still sends you to the dashboard for it.

Where does it sit in the workflow — after grilling and the spec?

Nowhere in particular. It's a standalone, not a chain step. The common guess is /grill-with-docs → /to-spec → /wizard, and that sequence is fine, but the trigger is a manual procedure showing up, which can happen at any point: before you start, mid-build, or long after ship. It also works as a discovery tool — scoping surfaces the hidden prerequisites of a task, like the three API keys you hadn't thought about, before you commit to the work.

Does it work outside Claude Code?

The artifact does, unconditionally: it's a plain bash script and it doesn't care what harness generated it. The skill itself is model-invoked, so it's listed everywhere — type /wizard in Claude Code or $wizard in Codex, or just describe the setup you're stuck on. Being model-invoked also keeps it clear of #693, where Claude's desktop and web surfaces drop user-invoked skills from the model's listing and report them as not installed.

Didn't this used to be user-invoked?

It did. It's now model-invoked, so the agent reaches for it unprompted when it hits a step you have to take. Nothing you could do before stopped working — model-invocation adds the agent's reach, it never removes yours, so /wizard behaves exactly as it did. What changed is the failure mode it retires: the agent hitting a credentials wall mid-build and dumping six numbered steps into the chat for you to follow by hand.

It used to be in in-progress/ — where is it now?

engineering/, as of v1.2. It graduated out of the beta bucket and now ships in the plugin, so it arrives with the rest of the promoted set rather than needing an individual install. Its behaviour didn't change on graduation.

It's working if

• You're shown an ordered list of stages, and the values each one produces, and asked to confirm — before any script exists.
• Every URL is opened before the value from that page is asked for. You're never asked to paste something you haven't been sent to fetch.
• Secrets are typed blind. Nothing sensitive echoes into your scrollback.
• Each stage fits one screen. Nothing you still need has scrolled away.
• Ctrl-C and re-run picks up where you left off, offering the values already saved as defaults.
• The final screen lists what it wrote, and separately lists what it couldn't do and you have to finish by hand.

Where it fits

wizard is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone, sitting at the line where automation stops and a human has to click. Its nearest neighbour is setup-espo-skills, because both exist to get a repo into a working state — that one configures this skill set, while wizard generates a setup path for everything else. It also pairs with implement: when a build lands a feature that needs credentials or a manual cutover, a wizard is how the human half gets done. When you're unsure which skill fits the moment, ask-espo routes you.

Try it once

Use the core behavior in one conversation before installation. The repeatable Skill package is the primary path when you want the behavior available across future work.

Create a human-operated setup wizard for [procedure]. Automate only navigation, prompts, validation, and safe file updates. Keep credentials hidden and stop for confirmation before consequential steps.

Source & license

Released in EspoAI Skills v0.1.2; adapted from mattpocock/skills v1.2.3. The released package is skills/engineering/wizard/SKILL.md.

The public package is MIT-licensed and pinned here to the exact release commit. View the released EspoAI source

The adapted baseline preserves the upstream copyright, MIT permission notice, and pinned provenance. View the original pinned source

Skill package files

The full Skill text as copied from content/skill-vault/skills/wizard/. Supporting agent configuration files stay in that folder.

SKILL.md

---
name: wizard
description: Generate an interactive bash wizard that walks a human through steps only they can perform. Use when provisioning infrastructure, setting up credentials or CI secrets, walking an unfamiliar third-party dashboard, or running a one-off migration or cutover. Don't invoke this for steps the agent can perform itself.
---

# Wizard

A **wizard** is a bash script that walks a human, step by step, through a manual procedure that's tedious to do by hand and tedious to re-explain to an AI every time. It opens each URL, says exactly what to click and copy, captures the values, writes them where they belong (`.env`, GitHub secrets), confirms at every stage, and shows how many stages are left. It might configure third-party services, run a one-off migration, or move the project from one state to another.

The delightful UX is already solved by [template.sh](template.sh) — stage-by-stage progress, confirmation gates, cross-platform URL opening (including WSL), hidden secret entry, idempotent `.env` upserts, `gh secret`/`gh variable` writes, and a closing summary. **Your job is only to scope the procedure and author its stages.** The library above the `STAGES` marker is identical in every wizard; that consistency is the point — never hand-edit it.

A wizard is ephemeral by default — built for one run, saved to a scratch or `scripts/` path, deleted when the job's done. Commit it only when the user wants a repeatable setup path that should live in the repo.

## Process

### 1. Scope the procedure

Work out every manual step the human must take and every value that gets captured along the way. Read the repo first — don't ask cold:

- For setup: `.env`, `.env.example`, `.env.*`, `README`, `docker-compose*`, framework config, and `.github/workflows/*` (every `secrets.*` / `vars.*` reference is a value the wizard must produce).
- For a migration or transition: the current state, the target state, and the irreversible actions between them.

Then show the user the ordered list of stages and the values each produces, and confirm — they may add, drop, or reorder.

**Done when:** every stage is named in order, and for each captured value you know (a) where the human gets it, (b) where it's written (`.env`, a GitHub secret, both, or nowhere — some stages are pure actions), and (c) whether it's secret (hidden entry) or public.

### 2. Map each stage's journey

For each stage, write the precise path a human follows: which URL to open, what to do there, where a value is shown, which variable it fills — e.g. "Dashboard → Developers → API keys → Reveal test key → copy". Where you don't actually know the current UI or the exact command, say so and ask the user or check the docs — never invent steps that may not exist.

**Done when:** every stage traces to concrete instructions a stranger could follow.

### 3. Author the wizard

Copy `template.sh` to the target path. Replace the example stage with one `stage` per step, in dependency order. Use the library helpers — `stage`, `say`/`step`, `open_url`, `ask`/`ask_secret`, `write_env`, `set_secret`/`set_var`, `pause`/`confirm` — and set `TOTAL_STAGES` to the number of stages you wrote.

Hold the bar the template sets: open the URL before asking for its value, use `ask_secret` for anything secret, `write_env` every persisted value, `set_secret` only the values CI actually needs, and `confirm` before any irreversible action. Each `stage` clears the screen so only the current step is visible — keep a stage to one focused task so nothing the human needs scrolls away. Don't touch the library above the marker.

### 4. Verify and hand off

- `bash -n <script>`; run `shellcheck` if available.
- `chmod +x <script>`.
- Don't run it end-to-end yourself — it opens browsers and blocks on human input. Trace it statically instead: every value from step 1 is captured and lands where step 1 said, and every `set_secret` name exactly matches a `secrets.*` reference in CI.
- Tell the user how to run it. If it's a repeatable setup path, commit it and link it from the README so the next person runs the script instead of asking an AI.