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Agent Skills

On-demand capability files and skill registries used by AI agents.

How To Evaluate Entries​

Each entry in this family should make the following points clear:

  • What the convention is.
  • Where the file, URL, or protocol surface normally lives.
  • When a team should use it.
  • Adoption evidence from a public spec, canonical docs, or active ecosystem use.
  • Which example illustrates the convention, if one exists.
  • Related conventions that solve adjacent problems.

Registry Entries​

Skills are modular, on-demand capability files. Instead of loading all context upfront, an agent reads a skill file only when the task matches its description. The format has converged into an open standard.

SKILL.md​

A markdown file with a YAML frontmatter header (name, description, tools, triggers) and a structured body with workflows, checklists, and output templates. The agent reads it from the filesystem on demand — it never enters the context window unless triggered.

Published by Anthropic as an open standard in December 2025. OpenAI adopted the same format for Codex CLI and ChatGPT in the same period. GitHub Copilot followed in December 2025, reading skills from .github/skills/.

Standard install locations:

AgentPersonalProject
Claude Code~/.claude/skills/.claude/skills/
Codex CLI~/.codex/skills/.codex/skills/
GitHub Copilot—.github/skills/

For teams using multiple agents, the symlink pattern keeps a canonical .skills/ directory and links each agent to it.

skills.sh​

A community registry and package manager for agent skills. Tracks install counts across a public leaderboard and lets anyone publish or discover skills for any supported agent. Install any skill into the current project with a single command:

npx skills init

Supports all major agents: AMP, Antigravity, Claude Code, ClawdBot, Cline, Codex, Cursor, Droid, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Goose, Kilo, Kiro CLI, Nous Research, OpenCode, Roo, Trae, VSCode, and Windsurf.