skills – CLI for the Open‑Agent Skills ecosystem

What it is – skills is a command‑line tool (installed via npx or npm) that lets you discover, install, update, and run agent skills. A skill is a small, reusable instruction set for a coding‑assistant (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, etc.) defined in a SKILL.md file.

Why it matters – Modern AI‑powered coding assistants can be extended with custom prompts. skills provides a unified workflow to fetch those prompt bundles from any Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, Azure Repos, or a direct URL), place them where the target agent expects them, and even launch the agent interactively with the generated prompt.

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Core concepts

Concept	Explanation
Skill	A directory containing a SKILL.md file with YAML front‑matter (name, description) and the prompt text the agent will follow.
Agent	The AI‑coding assistant you want to extend (e.g., claude-code, cursor, opencode). The CLI knows where each agent stores its skill files.
Scope	Skills can be installed project‑local (./<agent>/skills/) or global (~/<agent>/skills/).
Source	Skills are pulled from any Git repo (GitHub shorthand, full URL, GitLab, Azure, SSH, or a local folder) or from a direct download URL (zip/tar).

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Typical workflow

1. Find a skill – Browse the public catalog at https://skills.sh or search locally:

   npx skills find web‑design
   

2. Install – Pull the skill(s) into the desired agents:

   npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills --skill web-design-guidelines -a claude-code -g -y
   

   -g makes it global, -a selects the agent, -y skips prompts.
3. Use without installing – Generate the prompt and pipe it straight to an agent:

   npx skills use vercel-labs/agent-skills@web-design-guidelines | claude
   

4. Update – Refresh installed skills to the latest version:

   npx skills update -y
   

5. Remove – Clean up unwanted skills:

   npx skills remove web-design-guidelines -a claude-code
   

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Main commands

Command	What it does
skills add <source>	Install one or many skills from a repo or URL. Supports --skill, --agent, --global, --copy, etc.
skills use <source>	Resolve a skill, output the generated prompt, or launch the selected agent interactively (--agent).
skills list (ls)	Show all skills currently installed (project or global).
skills find [query]	Interactive or keyword search across discovered skills, optionally limited to a GitHub owner.
skills update [skills…]	Pull newer versions of installed skills; can be scoped (-g, -p) or run non‑interactively (-y).
skills remove [skills…]	Delete installed skills; flags let you target agents, scope, or remove everything.
skills init [name]	Scaffold a new SKILL.md template for authoring your own skill.

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Supported agents (excerpt)

The CLI knows about 75+ agents ranging from popular ones like claude-code, cursor, codex, opencode to many community‑maintained agents (e.g., aider-desk, astrbot, kilo, zcode). Each agent has a predefined project and global directory where the CLI places symlinks (default) or copies of the skill files.

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Installation & usage

# One‑off use – no permanent install needed
npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills

# Global install via npm (optional)
npm i -g skills

The tool relies on the Git credentials you already have configured (Git credential helper, GitHub CLI, SSH keys, etc.). For private repos you can supply GITHUB_TOKEN/GH_TOKEN or let the CLI fall back to your existing authentication.

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When to consider it

• Standardising prompts across a team of developers using the same coding assistant.
• Sharing reusable workflows (release‑note generation, PR scaffolding, integration with tools like Linear or Notion).
• Rapidly prototyping a new prompt without committing it to a repo – skills use lets you test on‑the‑fly.
• CI/CD pipelines – the non‑interactive flags (--yes, --global) make it safe to install skills in automated environments.

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Limitations & considerations

• The CLI only manages prompt files; it does not execute code or provide a runtime for the agents.
• Skill discovery is limited to a three‑level directory depth unless --full-depth is used.
• Large downloads are capped (10 MiB default) for safety; you can raise the limits with environment variables if you trust the source.

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TL;DR

skills is a lightweight, cross‑agent CLI that lets you fetch, install, and run prompt‑based extensions (skills) for a wide range of AI coding assistants. It works with any Git host, supports private repos, and can be used both interactively and in CI pipelines.