Skills

// Overview

A skill is a folder of instructions — plus any scripts or reference files it needs — that teaches a coding agent how to do one specific job, like drafting release notes or opening a pull request the way your team does it. Every agent that supports skills reads them from a slightly different place, which is the problem Skills exists to solve: it is a single `npx skills` command that fetches a skill from a git repository and writes it into whichever agent you actually use.

The CLI covers more than 75 coding agents, including Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode and Cline, and installs either into the current project or into your global agent configuration. Skills can be symlinked (so an update to the source repo flows straight through) or copied, and public and private repositories on several git hosts are supported. You can also skip installation entirely and run a skill once with `npx skills use`.

Alongside the CLI there is a community directory at skills.sh, and `npx skills find` searches it from the terminal. Because a skill is just a folder in a repository, publishing one means pushing it to git — there is no registry to register with and nothing to package.

// What it does

• Installs skills into 75+ coding agents from one command, so a skill written once works wherever you code
• Project-scoped or global installs, with symlink or copy as the install strategy
• `npx skills use` runs a skill without installing it
• `npx skills find` searches the open skills directory from the terminal
• Works with public and private repositories across multiple git hosts
• Interactive discovery and management of the skills already installed

// Getting started

The CLI needs no install of its own — run it with npx. A skill source is addressed as `owner/repo`.

npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills

npx skills find

npx skills use

Commands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.

// When to use it

• Share one team convention — release notes, PR descriptions, migration steps — across engineers who each use a different coding agent
• Install a vendor's official skills for their SDK instead of pasting their docs into a prompt
• Try a skill once with `npx skills use` before deciding whether it belongs in the repo
• Keep a project's skills in version control so a new contributor's agent is configured by checkout

// Skills in the news

1. 2026-08-21MAJOROpenViking v0.4.16 — agents can run Skills hosted on another server
2. 2026-05-25MAJORPromptArmor: Microsoft Copilot Cowork Exfiltrates Files via Poisoned Skills — Indirect Prompt Injection Hits 100% Success Against Claude Opus 4.7 and Sonnet 4.6
3. 2026-05-18MAJORxAI Ships Grok Skills — Teach Grok a Workflow Once and It Remembers Across Every Conversation on Web, iOS, and Android
4. 2026-05-13MAJORAnthropic Claude for Small Business — 15 Agentic Workflows and Skills Plug Claude Cowork Into QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365
5. 2026-05-11MAJORAnthropic Launches Claude Platform on AWS — Full Native Claude API, Skills, Managed Agents, and MCP Through AWS IAM and Marketplace Billing
6. 2026-04-09NOTABLESkillClaw: Let Skills Evolve Collectively

From the AI/TLDR release feed — every item is source-verified when it ships.

// How Skills compares

Skills alongside other open-source agent skills & plugins tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.