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Basta Skill for Claude

A comprehensive Claude skill for integrating with Basta's auction and ecommerce APIs. Install it once and Claude can help you build auction platforms, manage sales, handle bidding, and wire up real-time experiences — in its own words, and yours.

What it is

The Basta Skill is a Claude Agent Skill — a packaged bundle of workflows, API reference, example GraphQL operations, and Python helpers that teaches Claude how to work with Basta. It doesn't replace the APIs or run behind a server; it's knowledge Claude loads on demand, so it writes correct queries, mutations, and integration code against your account.

The skill spans Basta's four GraphQL APIs across both product surfaces: Auctions (sales, items, bidding, dynamic pricing) and the Marketplace (a full fixed-price ecommerce stack). It teaches Claude to drive the Management API and Client API — it does not replace them.

What Claude can do with it

Once the skill is installed, Claude can help you with:

  • Auctions — create and publish sales, add items, issue bidder tokens, and configure fees, registrations, offers, and buy-now.
  • Bidding — place bids (including MAX / proxy bids and NORMAL direct bids), make and counter offers, and manage watchlists.
  • Dutch auctions — descending-price sales with schedules and uniform clearing.
  • Real-time — subscribe to saleActivity over WebSocket for live prices, bids, and status changes.
  • Marketplace — storefront catalog, cart, and checkout, plus admin operations for products, orders, promotions, shipping, and tax.
  • Webhooks — set up and reason about event delivery for events like BidOnItem, SaleStatusChanged, and ItemsStatusChanged.

Install

The skill is authored in the open SKILL.md format, so it works anywhere Agent Skills are supported. Pick your tool.

Claude (claude.ai)

  1. Download the skill bundle, basta.skill, from the repository's releases/ folder.
  2. Go to claude.ai.
  3. Open Settings → Skills.
  4. Click Upload Skill.
  5. Select the downloaded basta.skill file.

Claude Code

Skills are filesystem-based here — no upload. Drop the skill folder into your skills directory:

Shell
# Personal skill — available in every project
git clone https://github.com/bastaai/basta-ai-skill.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r basta-ai-skill/skill ~/.claude/skills/basta

That puts SKILL.md at ~/.claude/skills/basta/SKILL.md. Claude Code picks it up in the current session — no restart. For a skill that ships with a single repo instead, use .claude/skills/basta inside that project.

Codex CLI

Same idea, under Codex's skills directory:

Shell
# Personal skill
git clone https://github.com/bastaai/basta-ai-skill.git
mkdir -p ~/.codex/skills
cp -r basta-ai-skill/skill ~/.codex/skills/basta

Then run /skills in Codex (or type $ to mention it), or just describe an auction task and Codex will match it. Use .codex/skills/basta for a project-scoped copy.

Using it

The skill activates automatically when you ask Claude about creating or managing auctions, the Basta APIs, bidding workflows, real-time updates, or webhooks. For example:

  • “Create a Basta auction for vintage guitars.”
  • “Generate a bidder token for user 123.”
  • “Explain the difference between MaxBid and NormalBid.”

Prerequisites

You'll need a Basta account and API credentials — the skill guides Claude, but the calls still run against your account. See Getting Started for the full setup, in short:

  1. Sign up at basta.app.
  2. Get your Account ID.
  3. Generate an API key in your dashboard settings.

The skill's bundled Python client and examples read your credentials from the environment:

Shell
export BASTA_ACCOUNT_ID="your_account_id"
export BASTA_API_KEY="your_api_key"

Your API key is account-wide — keep it and the Management API on the server only, never in the browser. For anything user-facing, use the Client API with short-lived bidder tokens.

Links

Support

Questions about the skill? Email us at hi@basta.app.