---
title: "Rolebase skill | Rolebase"
description: "Let Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or VS Code manage your Rolebase account through the API with the Rolebase skill."
url: "https://rolebase.io/en/developers/skill"
---

# Rolebase skill

Let Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or VS Code manage your Rolebase account through the API with the Rolebase skill.

[Download the Rolebase skill](/downloads/rolebase-skill.zip)

## Overview

The Rolebase skill teaches a coding agent to manage your whole Rolebase account through the HTTP API ([GraphQL](/en/developers/graphql-api) and [tRPC](/en/developers/trpc-api)), with `curl` and an API key read from the environment. It works in any agent that has a terminal and supports the open Agent Skills standard: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code with GitHub Copilot and others.

## Skill or MCP server

The skill is an alternative to the [MCP server](/en/developers/mcp). Both give the agent the same guide: working rules (approval before any write, right organization, app vocabulary), the data model and ready-made queries.

*   Use the **MCP server** for assistants without a terminal, such as Claude, ChatGPT or Mistral Vibe, or when you prefer a connector managed by your tool.
*   Use the **skill** when the agent works in a terminal: nothing to configure beyond an environment variable, and the agent can script its calls.

To connect a chat assistant step by step, see the [Use Rolebase with an AI assistant](/en/guides/use-an-ai-assistant) guide.

## Set the API key

Create a key from **My account > API keys** in Rolebase, then set it in the environment the agent starts from, for instance in your shell profile:

```bash
export ROLEBASE_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
# Optional, for a self-hosted or local instance
export ROLEBASE_API_URL=http://localhost:8888
```

The skill never asks for the key in the conversation and never prints it.

## Install the skill

### Claude Code

Install the Rolebase plugin, which contains the skill:

```
/plugin marketplace add Godefroy/rolebase
/plugin install rolebase@rolebase
```

### Codex, Cursor and VS Code

These tools all load skills from `~/.agents/skills/`. Unzip the downloaded file there, or fetch the skill directly from a terminal:

```bash
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills/rolebase && cd ~/.agents/skills/rolebase
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Godefroy/rolebase/main/plugins/rolebase/skills/rolebase/SKILL.md
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Godefroy/rolebase/main/plugins/rolebase/skills/rolebase/reference.md
```

To share it with a project team, put the same folder in `.agents/skills/rolebase/` at the root of the repository instead.

## Updates

The skill lives in [`plugins/rolebase/skills/rolebase`](https://github.com/Godefroy/rolebase/tree/main/plugins/rolebase/skills/rolebase) and follows the product. To update it, run `/plugin marketplace update rolebase` in Claude Code, or download the skill again.

When the API contradicts the skill, the agent checks the online documentation, carries on with the current behavior, and tells you what was out of date.