Installing the skills

Agent Skills are a shared format, so the same folder works in most agents. What differs is where each agent looks for it and how it is installed. This page gives the command or the steps for each agent. It also shows how to check that the agent can see the skill. For almost everyone, the fastest route is the single npx skills add command below.

The one command

It detects the agents installed on the machine and writes the skills where each expects them. Add --skill <name> to install one skill. Add --global to install for your user rather than the current project. Add --copy to get real files instead of symlinks. A symlink is a link to one shared copy.

Installing from this site's index

This site also publishes a discovery index at /.well-known/agent-skills/index.json. It follows a draft convention that lets agents find skills on a website. It carries a sha256 digest, a fingerprint, for every bundle.

One command does not work yet: npx skills add https://www.agenticarchitectureskills.com. Given a bare domain, the CLI downloads that URL instead of looking for the index. It then reports that the download is not a skill. This was tested against the skills CLI at version 1.5.23 in August 2026. Its own error message suggests that command, so the recommendation and the behaviour disagree. Use the repository form above until that is fixed.

The index is still worth having. An agent that supports discovery uses it to find these skills without being told where they are. The digests let any client check a bundle before trusting it.

Claude Code

The whole catalogue is also a plugin, which keeps it updatable in one step:

Skills installed this way are namespaced, so they never collide with your own. To install without the plugin, put a bundle in ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ for yourself or .claude/skills/<name>/ inside a project. Claude Code watches those directories, so a new skill is available without a restart.

Check it worked by asking for something the skill covers, for example: review this architecture against the deterministic zones.

claude.ai and Claude Desktop

Download a .zip from the catalogue and upload it under Settings, in the features section that manages skills. Uploaded skills stay with your account. A skill uploaded here does not appear in Claude Code or the API. Those are three separate installs of the same file.

Codex and ChatGPT

Codex reads .agents/skills/ in the working directory and up to the repository root, and ~/.agents/skills/ for your user. The npx skills add command writes both. Codex can also install from a repository with its own skill installer. Name this repository and the skill you want.

Cursor

Cursor reads .agents/skills/ and .cursor/skills/ in a project, and the same two under your home directory. It also reads .claude/skills/, so a Claude Code install is picked up as well.

Gemini CLI

Gemini CLI reads ~/.gemini/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/ for a user, and .gemini/skills/ or .agents/skills/ in a workspace. It can install from a git URL directly, or link a local directory.

GitHub Copilot

Copilot reads .github/skills, .claude/skills and .agents/skills in a project, and ~/.copilot/skills or ~/.agents/skills for a user. With a recent GitHub CLI:

By hand, anywhere

Download and unzip a bundle from the catalogue, then copy the folder into your agent's skills directory. Most agents now honour ~/.agents/skills/. The folder name has to stay the same as the skill's name, because that is how the format identifies it.

Checking an install

Ask the agent something the skill's description covers and see whether it reaches for it. If it does not, check three things:

• The folder name matches the skill name.
• The SKILL.md file is at the top of the folder, not one level down.
• The agent was restarted, if it does not watch its skills directory.

Keeping them current

Running npx skills add again updates in place. The Claude Code plugin updates when its version changes. Each bundle records the date of its newest input. The site's re-verification list says which facts change often and when they are next checked.

A note on these instructions

Menu names and directory conventions in this space change often. These steps were verified in August 2026 and sit on the re-verification list. Where an agent's own documentation disagrees with this page, follow the agent's documentation: it will be newer.