---
title: "An Agent Skill for Updating Elixir Dependencies"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/an-agent-skill-for-updating-elixir-dependencies-0v8pphegb
source_url: https://mikezornek.com/posts/2026/8/elixir-dependency-update-skill
type: article
source: "ElixirStatus"
published: 2026-08-14T14:39:54.918Z
updated: 2026-08-14T14:40:16.169Z
tags: ["elixir", "claude", "dependabot"]
reading_time: 4
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# An Agent Skill for Updating Elixir Dependencies

**[ElixirStatus](https://daily.dev/sources/elixirstatus)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A walkthrough of building a custom AI agent skill for Claude that automates updating Elixir dependencies, going beyond Dependabot's lock-file-only PRs. The skill identifies outdated libraries, applies updates, reads changelogs to determine necessary code changes, verifies CI passes, and produces a documented pull request with hex diffs and transitive dependency notes. The author still runs Dependabot alongside it and stresses that automation doesn't remove the need to actually read the code and changelogs.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://mikezornek.com/posts/2026/8/elixir-dependency-update-skill>

## Questions this post answers

### What does an agent skill folder for Claude Code need to contain at minimum?

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with at least a name and description in its metadata, plus instructions telling the agent how to perform a task. Optionally it can bundle a scripts folder for executable code, a references folder for documentation, and an assets folder for templates or other resources.

_Developers building their own Claude skills can compare approaches and examples shared on daily.dev._

### How can I automate Elixir dependency updates beyond what Dependabot provides?

A custom Claude agent skill can go further than Dependabot by identifying outdated Elixir libraries, applying updates, reading changelogs and hex diffs to determine required code changes, verifying the project builds green under CI checks, and then generating a pull request with inline changelog notes, hex diff links, and a list of affected transitive dependencies. Dependabot alone only ever changes the mix.lock file.

_Teams juggling dependency upgrades across projects can track new automation approaches like this on daily.dev._

### Can I limit an AI agent skill so it only runs when I manually invoke it?

Yes, in Claude Code you can set the disable-model-invocation option in a skill's metadata to restrict it to manual invocation only, rather than letting the model trigger it automatically. Other skills without this setting can be invoked directly by the model itself.

_Developers fine-tuning agent behavior can follow evolving Claude Code skill controls on daily.dev._

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---

Tags: [#elixir](https://daily.dev/tags/elixir), [#claude](https://daily.dev/tags/claude), [#dependabot](https://daily.dev/tags/dependabot)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/an-agent-skill-for-updating-elixir-dependencies-0v8pphegb)