E-MapReduce:Manage clusters with EMR Agent Skills

Install Alibaba Cloud CLI

This skill requires Alibaba Cloud CLI 3.3.1 or later:

# On macOS
brew install aliyun-cli

# Or use the official script
curl -fsSL https://aliyuncli.alicdn.com/aliyun-cli-install.sh | bash

# Verify the version
aliyun version

Configure Alibaba Cloud credentials

# Interactive configuration
aliyun configure
# Enter your AccessKey ID, AccessKey Secret, and default region.

Alternatively, configure them using environment variables:

export ALIBABACLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID="your-ak"
export ALIBABACLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET="your-sk"
export ALIBABACLOUD_REGION_ID="cn-hangzhou"

Ensure RAM permissions

We recommend using a RAM user or role with EMR-related permissions.

Method 1: Use the npx skills CLI (Recommended)

Official Alibaba Cloud Skills are hosted at aliyun/alibabacloud-aiops-skills on GitHub. Install with npx skills:

# Install the EMR on ECS cluster management Skill
npx skills add aliyun/alibabacloud-aiops-skills --skill alibabacloud-emr-cluster-manage

Method 2: Manual installation

Place the skill directory under .claude/skills/ in your project root:

your-project/
└── .claude/
    └── skills/
        └── alibabacloud-emr-cluster-manage/
            ├── SKILL.md
            └── references/

For global access across projects, install to ~/.claude/skills/.

Usage

After installation, use natural language—the agent automatically matches the appropriate skill:

• "Create a Hadoop cluster for me."

• "Create a data lake cluster with 3 CORE nodes."

• "Check the status of cluster c-xxx."

• "Scale out the cluster with 2 more TASK nodes."

• "Renew the cluster for 3 months."

How it works: On startup, Claude Code scans .claude/skills/ and reads the name and description metadata from each SKILL.md. When your request matches a skill description, the agent loads and executes it.

Advanced: Install alibabacloud-find-skills (Optional)

alibabacloud-find-skills is a meta skill that lets the agent search for, browse, and install other Alibaba Cloud Skills on demand.

npx skills add aliyun/alibabacloud-aiops-skills --skill alibabacloud-find-skills

Examples: "Help me find a skill to manage ECS" or "What database-related skills does Alibaba Cloud have?". Requires aliyun CLI >= 3.3.1 and the agentexplorer plugin.

Install OpenClaw

# macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

# Verify the installation (requires Node.js >= 22.0)
openclaw --version

Method 1: Use the npx skills CLI (Recommended)

Install from the official GitHub repository with npx skills:

npx skills add aliyun/alibabacloud-aiops-skills --skill alibabacloud-emr-cluster-manage

Choose project-level or global-level during installation. Verify:

openclaw skills list

Method 2: Manual installation

Copy the skill directory to one of these paths (highest priority first):

Usage

Start OpenClaw and interact with natural language:

# Terminal mode
openclaw tui

# Or Web mode
openclaw dashboard

The agent automatically matches the appropriate skill:

• "Create a Hadoop cluster for me"

• "Create a data lake cluster with 3 CORE nodes"

• "List the nodes in cluster c-xxx"

Security recommendation: Install the HITL plugin

Install the Alibaba Cloud HITL (Human-in-the-Loop) plugin to intercept high-risk operations and require manual confirmation:

openclaw plugins install @alicloud/alibabacloud-hitl-claw-plugin

Operations that create or modify cloud resources pause for your confirmation in the terminal before execution.

Q1: Skill does not work after installation

• Claude Code: Verify the skill directory exists in .claude/skills/ with a SKILL.md file.

• OpenClaw: Run openclaw skills list to verify that the Skill is loaded.

• Restart the agent session and try again.

Q2: Skill loads but commands fail

• Verify that Alibaba Cloud CLI is installed and credentials are configured (aliyun configure list).

• Confirm your RAM user has EMR permissions.

• Check that the correct region is specified.

Q3: npx skills installed to the wrong directory

npx skills installs to ~/.agents/skills/ by default, but Claude Code scans ~/.claude/skills/. Create a symlink:

# Create a symbolic link
ln -s ~/.agents/skills/alibabacloud-emr-cluster-manage ~/.claude/skills/

Alternatively, configure a SessionStart Hook in ~/.claude/settings.json to sync automatically.

Q4: How do I update a Skill?

# Check for updates
npx skills check

# Perform the update
npx skills update