Documentation

Everything you need to install, create, and publish agent skills.

Getting Started

SkillsMD is an open registry for reusable AI agent skills. Skills are Markdown files that provide procedural knowledge to coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and more.

Install a skill

$ npx skillsmd add owner/repo

This downloads the skill's .md file into your project's .skills/ directory. Your agent will automatically pick it up on the next run.

Browse available skills

$ npx skillsmd find "react best practices"

Or browse the registry to discover skills by category, popularity, or trending status.

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Creating a Skill

Any GitHub repository can contain skills. A skill is a Markdown file that follows the SkillsMD format.

Initialize a new skill

$ npx skillsmd init my-awesome-skill

This creates a skill.md file with the standard template.

Skill manifest format

Each skill file should include YAML frontmatter with metadata:

---
name: my-awesome-skill
description: What this skill does
tags: [react, frontend, design]
version: 1.0.0
---

# My Awesome Skill

Your skill instructions go here...

Skill file structure

• skill.md — The main skill file with instructions
• Frontmatter (YAML) — Metadata: name, description, tags, version
• Body (Markdown) — The actual skill instructions the agent follows

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Publishing

Skills are indexed from public GitHub repositories. To publish:

• Push your skill to a public GitHub repo
• Add the agent-skills topic to your repo
• Submit via the registry or wait for auto-indexing

Skills are ranked by install count. The more developers use your skill, the higher it ranks on the leaderboard.

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Supported Agents

SkillsMD skills work with any agent that supports the .skills/ directory convention:

• Claude Code (Anthropic)
• Cursor
• GitHub Copilot
• Codex (OpenAI)
• Gemini CLI (Google)
• Windsurf (Codeium)
• Cline

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CLI Reference

npx skillsmd add <owner/repo>     # Install a skill
npx skillsmd find <query>         # Search for skills
npx skillsmd init <name>          # Create a new skill
npx skillsmd update                # Update installed skills
npx skillsmd list                  # List installed skills
npx skillsmd remove <name>        # Remove a skill