---
title: "Drop a Database into Claude Code in 30 Seconds: HeliosDB Skill Bundles"
description: "Every HeliosDB product (Nano, Lite, Full, HeliosProxy) ships a `.claude/skills/` catalogue plus an `AGENTS.md` aggregate. ` install skills` deploys to `~/.claude/skills` and `~/.codex/skills` in one command. Verb-by-verb tool catalogues for Claude Code, Codex CLI, and any MCP-aware agent."
date: 2026-05-05
updated: 2026-05-05
tag: "Agentic-Ops"
canonical: https://www.heliosdb.com/blog/claude-code-database-skill-bundles.html
---

# Drop a Database into Claude Code in 30 Seconds: HeliosDB Skill Bundles

Every HeliosDB product ships its own catalogue of agentic-ops skills. Instead of reading a 4 000-line README before you can use the database, you run one subcommand and an LLM coding agent — Claude Code, Codex CLI, any MCP-aware tool — gets a complete A→Z verb catalogue: every CLI flag, every REPL meta-command, every public Rust API, every MCP tool. The agent knows the database the moment it enters the project.

## One-liner per product

```
# Nano
cargo install heliosdb-nano
heliosdb-nano skills install

# Lite
cargo install heliosdb-lite
heliosdb-lite skills install

# Full
cargo install heliosdb-full
heliosdb-full skills install

# HeliosProxy
cargo install heliosdb-proxy
heliosdb-proxy install skills
```

Each command unpacks a bundled `.claude/skills/` tree (and mirrors it to `~/.codex/skills/`) plus an aggregate `AGENTS.md` at project root — the de-facto convention LLM agents read first.

## What a skill looks like

A skill is a single `SKILL.md` file scoped to one operational domain. Nano ships 17 of them: `heliosdb-nano-overview`, `-install`, `-connect`, `-schema`, `-query`, `-transactions`, `-branches`, `-time-travel`, `-backup`, `-vector`, `-code-graph`, `-graph-rag`, `-mcp`, `-server`, `-deploy`, `-observability`, `-migrate`. Plus two reference helpers: `_index/verb-map.md` (every CLI flag → SQL function → MCP tool, normalised) and `_index/feature-matrix.md` (cargo feature ↔ skill).

Lite ships ~50 skills across foundation, DML/DDL, ops, advanced features, security, HA/replication, and AI/agent surface. Full ships a similar catalogue plus 14-protocol-specific skills. HeliosProxy ships 22 operator skills covering pool tuning, failover rehearsal, time-travel replay, plugin signing, and PG-12→17 upgrade orchestration.

## Why this matters

Coding agents are great at applying patterns they've seen, mediocre at exploring unfamiliar APIs. Without a skill catalogue, an agent fumbles through HeliosDB's surface the same way a new hire does: read the README, miss the relevant section, run the wrong command, hit a confusing error, retry. With the catalogue, the agent reads `AGENTS.md` once and knows the exact verb — `CREATE BRANCH staging FROM main`, `SELECT * FROM products AS OF TIMESTAMP '2026-04-01'`, `graph_bfs(...)`, `WITH CONTEXT(...)` — for the task in front of it.

## Installer flags

- **`--target claude|codex|both`** — default is both. Picks where the bundle lands.
- **`--symlink`** — instead of copying, symlink into `~/.local/share/heliosdb-<product>/skills/` so re-running after a binary upgrade refreshes the bundle in place.
- **`--force`** — overwrite any pre-existing `heliosdb-*` skill directories. Without this, the installer backs up existing dirs to `*.bak.<unix-ts>`.
- **`--dry-run`** — print the planned actions without writing.

## What's next

The skill bundles ship in every release going forward. Expect skill counts to grow with feature work — we treat skills as first-class deliverables alongside the code. If a feature ships without a skill, it doesn't ship.

Repos: [Nano](https://github.com/dimensigon/HDB-HeliosDB-Nano) · [Lite](https://github.com/dimensigon/HDB-HeliosDB-Lite) · [Full](https://github.com/dimensigon/HDB-HeliosDB-Full) · [HeliosProxy](https://github.com/dimensigon/HDB-HeliosDB-Proxy).