Private store

Manage Halo's Store sources in Settings › App Store. Learn the 5 built-in sources, add a private source, turn sources on or off, and see what it must serve.

Just tell Halo

Add our company's source to the Store sources: https://store.example.com

Halo adds the address in Settings › App Store. After that, the source's Digital Humans and skills show up in the Store. It can also turn sources on or off and remove them for you.

Prerequisite: turn on Operate Halo in the composer under ＋ › Capabilities. The AI adds the source without a confirmation dialog.

Before you start

Settings › App Store manages the Store's sources, not the Store itself. You browse and install in Store on the nav rail; see Store. The Store merges every source that is turned on, and search covers all of them.

To run a private store, you need:

• An address that every colleague's computer can reach, for serving static files (any static web hosting works)
• An index and packages prepared as described in What a private source must serve
• Each colleague to add the source once in their own Halo. Sources are saved in each computer's own settings and do not sync

Built-in sources

Open Settings › App Store. Its description reads "Manage registry sources for discovering and installing apps". Halo downloaded from the official site has 5 built-in sources, all on by default:

Name shown	Type tag	What it serves
Digital Human Protocol	Halo	Digital Humans, skills, MCP. This is the official source. It is always first and is the primary source: the Store's categories and Discover layout come from it
MCP Official Registry	MCP	MCP servers, queried live
Smithery	Smithery	MCP servers, queried live. It has an optional Smithery API key (optional) field; enter the key and click Save
Claude Skills Registry	Claude Skills	About 100 curated skills; files download from GitHub at install time
SkillHub (33k+ Skills)	skillhub	Community skills, queried live. The service is hosted in mainland China

Each row shows the name, the type tag, the address and an on/off switch. Digital Humans come only from Halo-type sources (the official source and the custom sources you add).

INFO

A Halo provided by your company may show different sources; see Company builds.

Add a custom source

1. Open Settings › App Store and click Add Registry below the list.
2. In Name, enter a name your colleagues will recognize, such as "Company store".
3. In URL, enter the root address of the private source, such as https://store.example.com. A trailing / is removed.
4. Click Add. The new source appears at the end of the list, switched on.

The form has no type picker. Custom sources are always read as Halo static sources (the DHP static format), and the list shows no type tag for them.

Address rules:

Rule	What you see if it's not met
Both Name and URL are filled in	"Name is required" or "URL is required"
It is a complete web address	"Please enter a valid URL"
It starts with http:// or https://	Registry URL must use http:// or https://
It is not localhost, 127.0.0.1, or a private IP address such as 10.x, 172.16–31.x, 192.168.x or 169.254.x	Registry URL must point to a public host (loopback, private, and link-local addresses are not allowed)
No source in the list has the same address	Registry already exists: Company store (with the existing source's name)

Halo only checks addresses written as an IP. Reach an internal service by a domain name, such as https://store.example.com.

Done

Go back to Store on the nav rail. The private source's Digital Humans appear on the Digital Human tab and its skills on the Skill tab. A new source downloads its index first; if nothing shows yet, click Refresh.

Turn sources on, off or remove them

Action	How	Result
Turn a source off	Turn off the row's switch	Its items leave browse, search and category counts. The local cache is kept, so turning it back on needs no download. Items already installed keep working
Turn a source on	Turn on the switch	Its items come back to the Store
Remove a custom source	Click Remove registry (the trash icon) at the right of the row	The source and its local cache are deleted. Installed Digital Humans and skills are not uninstalled. There is no confirmation; add it again to undo
Reorder sources	Not supported	The official source is always first; new sources go to the end

Built-in sources cannot be removed, only turned off. The SkillHub row shows a trash icon too, but clicking it fails and Cannot remove a built-in registry appears above the list. If you don't want SkillHub, turn off its switch.

After any change, the Store list reloads at once.

How often the Store refreshes

When you publish a new version to the private source, this is when colleagues see it:

When	What happens
Halo starts	It downloads each static source's index into a local cache (kept for 1 hour)
You switch to a Store tab, or back to the Halo window	A light "has anything changed?" check runs, at least 2 seconds apart. If something changed, the list reloads
You click Refresh in the Store	A full re-check is forced
A source fails to load or comes back empty	It is retried in the background, at most every 30 seconds. One failing source never empties the Store; the other sources still show
Live-query sources (SkillHub, MCP Official Registry, Smithery)	Query results are cached for 5 minutes

So after you publish, colleagues see the new version when they switch back to the Store. If it's urgent, ask them to click Refresh.

How updates reach installed items

Halo checks installed items for updates 60 seconds after it starts, then every 6 hours. It only checks active items that came from the Store. Versions are compared as semver; a version it can't parse counts as a major version.

Each Digital Human chooses how to take updates in Digital Humans › a Digital Human › Capabilities and settings › Advanced › Upgrades › Upgrade strategy:

Upgrade strategy	What actually happens
Auto (silent patch/minor) (default)	Patch and minor versions (such as 1.2.0 → 1.2.1 or 1.3.0) install without asking; major versions (such as 2.0.0) ask first
Notify only	Every update is announced; nothing installs on its own
Manual	The help text says "No automatic upgrade checks. Use Check for upgrades to update on demand." In fact the background check still runs and the Store detail page still shows Update to; it just never installs anything by itself

Check for upgrades next to it runs a check right away. The update dialog also offers Skip this version, which applies to that one version only.

For a private store this means: if you raise a Digital Human from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1 in your source, colleagues' computers install it by default at the first update check after Halo next syncs the Store catalog. A raise to 2.0.0 asks them first. The catalog syncs when Halo starts, when the Store page opens (or you switch back to it), and when you click Refresh; the 6-hourly update check only reads the synced catalog.

What a private source must serve

Custom sources are read in the DHP static format. A set of static files under one address is enough; you don't need a dedicated server. See DHP protocol for the full format and Publish to the Store for publishing.

File (relative to the source's root address)	Contents
digital-humans.json, skills.json, mcps.json	Split index, read first. If any one of the three is missing, Halo reads index.json instead
index.json	Single-file index, used when the split index is incomplete
spec.yaml under the entry's path	The definition of each Digital Human or skill; the path comes from the index entry's path
files/ under the entry's path	A skill's files, such as files/SKILL.md (the Store detail page shows it as documentation)
skills/ plus the skill ID under the entry's path	Skill files embedded in a Digital Human

A private source that only holds Digital Humans still needs skills.json and mcps.json: each must be a full index object whose apps is an empty array [], with version, generated_at and source as in the example below. A bare [] fails validation and Halo falls back to index.json. Or use a single index.json instead.

The official source's repository keeps each Digital Human in a folder named after its slug under packages/digital-humans/, then builds the index. Following that layout is the easiest way to build your own. An index looks roughly like this:

{
  "version": 1,
  "generated_at": "2026-10-18T00:00:00Z",
  "source": "https://store.example.com",
  "apps": [
    {
      "slug": "ops/daily-report",
      "name": "Daily report helper",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "author": "ops",
      "description": "Summarizes operations data every day and posts it to the group",
      "type": "automation",
      "path": "packages/digital-humans/daily-report"
    }
  ]
}

type automation is a Digital Human, skill is a skill. A slug can be one part, such as daily-report, or two parts with the author, such as ops/daily-report.

TIP

If your hosting returns an ETag, Halo's "has anything changed?" check takes only a few conditional requests (one per index file), and an unchanged index is not downloaded again.

A static private source only provides the catalog and downloads. The following need a DHP v2 store server, set up by a company build as the primary source: sign-in to publish, Mine and My Publications, server review messages, install counts, the Featured badge, rank boards and Scene Collections.

Company builds

A company can preset the Store sources when it packages Halo:

• Point the official source to the company's own store server; the name and address are re-applied on every start
• Hide a built-in source: it disappears from the list and its cache is cleared
• Lock a source's switch: if a user changes it, it is restored on the next start

A common setup points the official source to the company's DHP v2 store server and hides the other 4 sources, which turns the Store into a private store with only company content.

INFO

A Halo provided by your company may show different sources, or fewer. The list in Settings › App Store on your screen is what counts.

Only add sources you trust

DANGER

Installing a Digital Human or skill lets the AI follow its instructions and scripts with the AI's full permissions: reading and writing files, running commands and going online, without per-call confirmation. When a source's content changes, the default Auto strategy also installs patch and minor versions silently. Only add sources you trust, and control who can publish to your private source. See The AI runs tools without asking each time.

• Serve the private source over https:// where you can, so downloads can't be altered in transit
• Turn off built-in sources you don't need to reduce Halo's outbound requests
• To let colleagues install only company-reviewed content, hide the other sources with a company build

Troubleshooting

Adding fails with Registry URL must point to a public host

The address uses localhost or a private IP directly. Give the private source a domain name and add it again with an address like https://store.example.com.

Adding fails with Registry already exists

A source with the same address is already in the list; the message names it. An extra / at the end still counts as the same address.

Clicking SkillHub's trash icon shows Cannot remove a built-in registry

SkillHub is a built-in source and can't be removed. Turn off its switch and its items no longer show.

The source is added, but the Store shows nothing from it

1. Open https://store.example.com/digital-humans.json (or index.json) in a browser and confirm this computer can reach it.
2. Check that all three split index files exist. If one is missing Halo reads index.json; if that is missing too, nothing loads.
3. Check the required fields of each index entry: slug, name, version, author, description, type, path.
4. Go back to the Store and click Refresh.

A new version is published, but the Store still shows the old one

Switch to a Store tab or click Refresh. Installed items wait for the next update check (60 seconds after start, then every 6 hours). To check right away, click Refresh in the Store first, then Check for upgrades in the Digital Human's Upgrades settings.

Next steps

• Store: how colleagues browse, install and update items from your private source
• DHP protocol: the full format of the index and spec.yaml
• Security, privacy and data flow: before a security review, see which addresses Halo contacts and what the AI is allowed to do