How I made my skills update themselves

I updated one of my Agent Skills and realized I had no way to tell my other machines they were running a stale copy. Skills install as loose folders in ~/.claude/skills/. The skill runs whatever's on disk — and has no way of knowing there's a newer version. This post describes what I tried first, why it wasn't quite right, and what replaced it after a useful LinkedIn thread. Why versioning matters Most of my skills are the executable companion to a post: The astro-seo skill implements Astro SEO: the definitive guide. The github-repo skill implements How to create a healthy GitHub repository. The github-profile skill implements Good-looking GitHub profile pages. The wp-github-actions skill implements GitHub Actions to keep your WordPress plugin healthy. Each pairing turns an opinionated blog post into a drop-in workflow. The post argues for a set of choices; the skill makes those choices the default. Want to understand why? Read the post. Want to apply it? Run the skill. But opinions…