# Skills quickstart

Choose the standalone Skill path when the agent host cannot mount a hosted MCP server directly.

- Canonical: https://docs.xmemo.dev/docs/skills/quickstart
- Locale: en-US
- Content-Locale: en-US
- Canonical-Content-Digest: 69e6d96ea95409a203c17a37910c677f8c6f54363d420c6d5d2f344d0ad82976
- Edition-Digest: 4465673956124777056a5a604c3e504d77d6264c414455632b5dd5bcd5ec9029
- Source-Revision: sha256:2460a93e4af26771091dcefb6d37faf37a51fb8d29f107415d17468dcb7c908c

## When to choose the Skill instead of MCP

The standalone Skill is an agent connector runtime for hosts that cannot mount a hosted MCP server, communicating over direct HTTPS with XMemo. It is distinct from user-authored Cloud Skills (reusable procedural SOPs stored in XMemo).

- Use hosted MCP when the agent host supports MCP.
- Use the standalone Skill when it does not.
- Neither path is universally better; pick what the host can actually support.

## Install

```bash
npm install -g @xmemo/client
npx @xmemo/client setup --url https://xmemo.dev
```

## One Skill, its own runtime

The standalone Skill runs as a bundled ESM Node script in the agent workspace and talks to XMemo directly over HTTPS. It executes in four distinct steps.

- Local execution: the agent runs the bundled ESM Node script in the workspace.
- Initiate login: the script starts the device login flow if no token is cached.
- User approval: the user approves access in the browser to issue a scoped token.
- HTTPS operations: the script calls /v1/skill/operations directly over HTTPS.

```bash
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs doctor
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs login
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs auth-status --verify
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs remember --content "Decision: use standalone Skill runtime"
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs recall --query "standalone Skill runtime"
node skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs logout
```

## Install the Skill package

Install or copy the XMemo Skill directory into the agent workspace and run the bundled script with Node. The script uses only built-in Node modules. The npm package is one distribution channel for the Skill files; the Skill runtime itself is the bundled script.

- Skill directory: skills/xmemo
- Entrypoint: skills/xmemo/scripts/xmemo-skill.mjs
- Runtime: Node.js
- External dependencies: none