Skills

The skill is published at https://api.lineage.rexstjohn.com/.well-known/skills/lineage/SKILL.md. It calls the REST API with LINEAGE_API_KEY, so it works in any agent that can run curl or HTTP requests, with or without MCP.

What it covers

• When to use it: questions about an ancestor, genealogy, a family record or a person who died, and when not to: anyone who may be alive.
• The one-call pattern (POST /v1/searches, then poll) and the stage-by-stage pattern for close candidates.
• Citation rules: repeat only facts with a citation URL, and quote the source and locator rather than paraphrase.
• Budgets: set budget_credits before a run and report credits_spent after it.

Claude

Save the file as lineage/SKILL.md in your skills folder, or use the MCP server, which gives Claude the same instructions as server instructions.

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/lineage
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/lineage/SKILL.md https://api.lineage.rexstjohn.com/.well-known/skills/lineage/SKILL.md

OpenClaw

The openclaw-ancestor-skill template in the repo is a skill folder ready to copy into OpenClaw's skills directory; its SKILL.md is kept identical to the published file by a test. A ClawHub listing is prepared but not published yet.

Hermes

Hermes can load the same SKILL.md as a skill, or use the MCP server through mcp_servers in config.yaml; the MCP page has the snippet. The hermes-genealogy-agent template does both, with a weekly job that reports new sources.

The rule every skill repeats

Searches about anyone who may be alive return living_person_blocked and cost 0 credits. Lineage researches someone only when a death date is on record, or a birth more than 110 years ago. A relative who may be alive comes back as { relation, living: true } with no name, dates or places.