Individual skill
desktop-commander-overview
Use for Desktop Commander MCP capabilities — persistent shells and REPLs, long-running processes, filesystem beyond the workspace, structured files (.xlsx, .docx, .pdf, images) and large local data files such as CSVs, ripgrep search at scale, SSH, or cross-turn state.
skills/desktop-commander-overview/SKILL.md
Source commit d05721a09d86d35bb86a2b1c07c87139b5d9b6a6
What was checked
- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- Yes
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- Yes
- Observed behavior
- Network or broad shell
- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.
Install this skill
Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.
An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.
Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 10,266
- Repository last updated
- Nov 7, 2026
- License
- MIT
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- agent Repository topic
- ai Repository topic
- code-analysis Repository topic
- code-generation Repository topic
- mcp Repository topic
- terminal-ai Repository topic
- terminal-automation Repository topic
- vibe-coding Repository topic
- gemini-cli-extension Repository topic
- data Derived category
Files and excerpt
File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.
Browse files
SKILL.mdcore · 12,282 bytes
Read excerpt
# Desktop Commander MCP
Desktop Commander gives the agent reach across the user's actual computer — files, folders, terminals, processes, structured documents, and remote machines reachable over SSH. The tools' detailed schemas (parameters, return shapes, format-specific behavior) live in the MCP itself; this skill explains what they enable and how they compose into common workflows.
## What this MCP gives the agent
**Persistent shell sessions.** Desktop Commander keeps a started process or session alive across tool calls. Inside a single long-lived shell, REPL, or SSH session, state carries forward — environment variables, working directory, activated virtualenvs, open connections, REPL variables — so the agent can `cd`, activate a venv, then send commands or code into that same session many turns later without re-setup. (Note: separate `start_process` calls open separate sessions and do **not** share shell state with each other; persistence is inside one session, not across them.)
**Long-running processes.** Start a dev server, watcher, build, training run, or test suite in the background and keep working. The MCP returns a process handle the agent can tail, interact with, or terminate across many turns. Long-running commands don't need to block the workflow waiting for a foreground command to exit.
**Filesystem reach beyond the IDE workspace.** Read, write, move, list, and inspect files anywhere the user has granted scope — Downloads, Documents, project folders outside the IDE, or any other granted folders. Useful for organize-and-clean tasks, batch document work, and any "look at the file my coworker just sent me" request that doesn't fit inside the IDE sandbox.
**Surgical edits to existing files.** The `edit_block` tool does exact-string find-and-replace with built-in safety: ambiguous matches fail loudly instead of silently overwriting the wrong thing, and an `expected_replacements` count prevents partial-match disasters. Lower data-loss risk than rewriting whole files based on the slice you happened to read — though a wrong `old_string` or wrong `expected_replacements` can still corrupt content, so review the changed content before considering the edit done.
