skills

skills

The CLI for the open agent skills ecosystem.

Agent skills are reusable instructions that teach coding agents how to perform tasks, from reviewing code to working with a library. Discover skills at skills.sh.

Supports OpenCode, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and 75 more.

Install a Skill

Requires Node.js 22.20 or later. Run this from your project:

npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills

Choose the skills and coding agents to install to. Skills are installed to the current project by default; add -g to make them available across projects.

# Choose one skill and agent
npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills --skill web-design-guidelines -a claude-code

# Browse available skills
npx skills find

See the installation reference for source formats, private repositories, and all options.

Other Commands

Read the CLI reference or run npx skills --help for examples and options. Experimental commands are listed below.

Use a Skill Without Installing

Generate a prompt for a skill, or launch a supported coding agent with it:

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

Omit --agent to print the prompt instead. See skills use.

Experimental Features

npm install -D skills agent-browser
npx skills experimental_sync -y

Lock File Content Hash

skills-lock.json (version 2) records a computedHash for each project skill. The hash covers the files the CLI installs into .agents/skills/<name>, so list, check, and install --frozen-lockfile can compare it with what is on disk. Tools that check skills themselves can compute the same value:

1. Collect every file in the skill folder. Leave out metadata.json files and the .git, __pycache__, and __pypackages__ folders, because the installer does not copy them. A symlink counts as the file or folder it points to. Leave out a symlink that is broken, loops, or points outside the skill folder.
2. Give each file a path relative to the skill folder, with / as the separator.
3. For a text file (a file that contains no NUL byte), replace each CRLF with LF. Do not change binary files.
4. Sort the files by the UTF-8 bytes of their paths. Do not use a locale-aware sort.
5. For each file in that order, feed path, a NUL byte, the content length in bytes as decimal ASCII, a NUL byte, and the content into one SHA-256. The content length is counted after step 3.
6. The hash is the lowercase hex digest.

Test vectors:

The last vector equals printf 'SKILL.md\0002\000a\ndocs/b.md\0002\000b\n' | sha256sum.

A version 1 lock is upgraded when it is read, without network access. An installed skill whose files still match its version 1 hash gets a new hash computed from those files. Any other entry gets an empty hash, because there is nothing trusted to check it against. skills install fetches those skills again and records new hashes, and --frozen-lockfile fails until that is done.

Supported Agents

The CLI detects installed agents and lets you choose where skills are installed. See all supported agents, installation paths, and compatibility.

Creating Skills

npx skills init my-skill

Edit the generated SKILL.md with instructions for your agent. See creating and sharing skills for the format and discovery rules.

Documentation

• CLI reference: installation, command examples, and experimental features
• Supported agents: agent names, skill directories, and compatibility
• Creating skills: frontmatter, repository layouts, and plugins
• Troubleshooting and configuration: common problems, environment variables, and telemetry
• Programmatic API: install and manage skills from your own tools with import { installSkills } from 'skills'

Telemetry

The CLI collects anonymous usage data. Set DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 to disable telemetry and security-audit requests. See what is collected.

Related Links

• Skills Directory
• Agent Skills Specification
• Vercel Agent Skills

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.