Find Skills

Discover and install third-party agent skills from the open Agent Skills ecosystem powered by skills.sh.

Overview

The Agent Skills format is an open standard for packaging procedural knowledge, workflows, and tools that AI agents load on demand. The npx skills CLI (maintained by Vercel Labs) serves as "npm for AI agents", enabling discovery and installation of community skills from any Git repository.

skills.sh is the public directory and leaderboard for the ecosystem, hosting thousands of skills across categories like frontend, backend, DevOps, and more.

Before installing an external skill, check ls skills/ in this repo (or run /find-skills again after browsing). cc-arsenal may already cover the same ground, and a hardcoded list here would just go stale.

Ask First, Never Mutate to "Show" Something

add, remove/rm, and update all touch the user's real filesystem (project .claude/skills/ or global ~/.claude/skills/). A wrong guess costs the user real state, not a free re-run. Two hard stops, both end the turn on a question rather than acting and reporting after:

• Scope or target is ambiguous. If it isn't clear which skill/repo to install, or whether it belongs at project vs. global scope, end your response with the clarifying question. Don't run npx skills add first and confirm after, and don't install to a throwaway/local mock "just to show the flow", which still runs a real command against the user's real directories. Ask, stop, and install only in a later turn once the user answers.
• Any removal, one skill or all of them. Removal is destructive and not undoable via the CLI. Run npx skills list (and -g if scope is unclear) to show what's actually installed, then end your response asking the user to confirm exactly what gets removed. Run remove/rm/--all only in a later turn, after the user replies with an explicit yes. The request is never the confirmation: "remove the foo skill, I don't use it anymore" names the action but does not green-light it. If you catch yourself reasoning "the user already confirmed by naming it", that reasoning is exactly the failure this rule exists to stop.

If a source can't be verified (repo doesn't exist, network/auth error), report the failure and stop. Never substitute a synthetic local repo and install it to demonstrate what would have happened.

Quick Start

Requires Node.js for npx (fnm install --lts or brew install node).

1. Find Skills

# Interactive fuzzy search across skills.sh
npx skills find

# Search by keyword
npx skills find typescript
npx skills find react
npx skills find testing

2. Review Available Skills in a Repository

# List skills in a repository without installing
npx skills add owner/repo --list

# Example: list Vercel's official skills
npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills --list

# Example: list Anthropic's skills
npx skills add anthropics/skills --list

3. Install Skills

# Interactive installation (choose skills and target agents)
npx skills add owner/repo

# Install a specific skill for Claude Code
npx skills add owner/repo --skill skill-name -a claude-code

# Install globally (available across all projects)
npx skills add owner/repo --skill skill-name -a claude-code -g

# Install all skills from a repo to all detected agents
npx skills add owner/repo --all

Worked Examples

Map the user's request to the right subcommand and scope before running anything:

See "Ask First, Never Mutate to 'Show' Something" above for exactly when to end the turn on a question instead of running the command.

Essential Commands

Installation Scopes

Project scope (default): Installs to .claude/skills/ in the current project directory. Committed with the project and shared with team members.

Global scope (-g flag): Installs to ~/.claude/skills/ in the home directory. Available across all projects for the current user.

Recommendation: Install domain-specific skills (e.g., a framework skill) at project scope. Install general-purpose skills (e.g., code review, testing patterns) at global scope.

Source Formats

The add command accepts multiple source formats:

# GitHub shorthand (most common)
npx skills add owner/repo

# Full GitHub URL
npx skills add https://github.com/owner/repo

# Direct path to a specific skill
npx skills add https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/skills/skill-name

# GitLab URL
npx skills add https://gitlab.com/org/repo

# Local directory (for development)
npx skills add ./my-local-skills

Key Repositories

Reference Files

For detailed command reference, load: references/commands.md

• All CLI subcommands with complete flag documentation
• Source format details and installation paths
• Troubleshooting common issues

For discovery patterns and best practices, load: references/workflows.md

• Discovery strategies by domain and framework
• Global vs project installation guidance
• Security review of skill sources
• Combining third-party skills with cc-arsenal
• Managing updates and versions

Resources