Open files in Emacs dired

SkillFiles & storage

This skill should be used when the user invokes "/dired" to open files from the latest interaction in an Emacs dired buffer via emacsclient.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the Open files in Emacs dired skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by xenodium/emacs-skills in skills/dired/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Open files from the most recent interaction in an Emacs dired buffer using emacsclient --eval. Only include files relevant to the latest interaction (files just generated, edited, listed, or produced by the most recent tool output), not all files mentioned throughout the conversation.

Strategy

Determine whether the relevant files all reside in the same directory or span multiple directories, then call agent-skill-dired accordingly.

  • Same directory: :dir is the directory, :files are basenames. Opens dired at that directory with the files marked in context.
  • Multiple directories: :dir is the common ancestor, :files are relative paths. Creates a curated *agent-files* buffer with all files marked.

First, locate agent-skill-dired.el which lives alongside this skill file at skills/dired/agent-skill-dired.el in the emacs-skills plugin directory.

emacsclient --eval '
(progn
  (load "/path/to/skills/dired/agent-skill-dired.el" nil t)
  (agent-skill-dired
    :dir "/path/to/directory"
    :files (quote ("file1.txt"
                   "file2.txt"
                   "file3.txt"))))'

Rules

  • Use relative paths in :files relative to :dir.
  • Locate agent-skill-dired.el relative to this skill file's directory.
  • If no relevant files exist in the recent interaction, inform the user.
  • Run the emacsclient --eval command via the Bash tool.

Signals

GitHub stars
135
Forks
17
Last commit
Jul 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
dired
Source
github.com/xenodium/emacs-skills