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Portable, auditable QEMU skills

Why Oh My QEMU uses independent project-local skills, one audit contract, and named QEMU build directories.

July 20, 2026 · Zevorn

Oh My QEMU is a set of 17 portable skills for local QEMU work. Each skill can be installed on its own and carries the same small workspace contract, so a project does not need any source-repository runtime.

Project-local installation

From a QEMU source root, the recommended path is:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/processmission/oh-my-qemu/main/install.sh | bash

It requires no manual clone, installs all 17 skills into project-local Codex and Claude Code, and rejects global flags. Skill contributors can instead clone Oh My QEMU and run ./install.sh --target /path/to/qemu; that form installs all skills directly from their local working tree. The lower-level npx skills add https://github.com/processmission/oh-my-qemu -l remains the preview-only catalog command.

After installation, the target repository clone locally excludes .agents/, .claude/skills/, .oh-my-qemu/, and builds/. This keeps installed skills, audit evidence, build output, and the generated skills-lock.json out of commits without changing the project’s shared .gitignore.

One audit contract

A non-trivial task uses the entries it needs under .oh-my-qemu/<task-slug>/: audit.md, commands.md, logs/, scripts/, and output/.

The two Markdown files preserve decisions and reproducible commands. Raw logs stay in logs/; temporary probes and parsers stay in scripts/; generated deliverables, dependency artifacts, and non-QEMU binaries stay in output/. Because every skill repeats this contract, it remains auditable even when only one skill is installed.

Named QEMU builds

QEMU itself is the exception to the task output rule. Its build tree belongs at the source root under a name such as builds/build-aarch64/. Separate names make target, feature, and debug configurations explicit and prevent one task from silently reusing an incompatible build.

Small skills, clear boundaries

The catalog covers coordination and feedback; register, peripheral, board, and TCG work; QEMU, kernel, U-Boot, image, and Linux boot workflows; and qtest, debug, model verification, and reStructuredText documentation.

qemu-workflow is optional coordination for larger tasks. qemu-agent-feedback remains a self-contained way to sanitize one reusable workflow improvement and request approval before filing it externally. Neither skill is required by the domain skills.

The result is deliberately simple: select the skill that matches the task, keep evidence local and reviewable, isolate QEMU builds, and leave the source tree with only the requested deliverables.