Install Agent Skills
Install Claude Code skills (reusable instruction sets) from the community registry or fallback sources.
From Community Registry
Skills are discovered by searching the awesome-claude-code CSV for "Agent Skills" entries.
- •Extract
{owner}/{repo}from the Primary Link and inspect the repo structure:bashgh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/contents/ --jq '.[].name' - •If repo has
.claude-plugin/marketplace.json→ tell user to install as plugin, skip - •If repo has a root
SKILL.mdor askills/directory:- •Check for SKILL.md files:
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/contents/skills --jq '.[].name' - •Create dirs and download:
bash
mkdir -p .claude/skills/<name> curl -sfL -o .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/{owner}/{repo}/main/<path-to-SKILL.md>" - •Verify the downloaded file:
test -s .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md - •If the file is missing or empty, try alternate paths:
{repo}/main/SKILL.md,{repo}/main/.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md,{repo}/main/skills/*/SKILL.md
- •Check for SKILL.md files:
- •If no installable structure → provide link for manual review
Exclude rows where Active is FALSE or Stale is TRUE.
From Preferred Installables
Preferred skills arrive with name and url already resolved. Skip repo inspection — download directly:
bash
mkdir -p .claude/skills/<name> curl -sfL -o .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md "<url>"
After each download, verify the file exists and is non-empty:
bash
test -s .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
If the download fails (curl exit code non-zero) or the file is empty, the URL is broken — fall back to the recovery process described in Error Handling below.
Fallback Skills Registry
Use these when the community registry is unavailable:
| Name | URL | Good For |
|---|---|---|
| svelte5-development | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/splinesreticulating/claude-svelte5-skill/main/SKILL.md | Svelte 5 / SvelteKit |
| mcp-builder | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/skills/main/mcp-builder/SKILL.md | Building MCP servers |
| webapp-testing | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/skills/main/webapp-testing/SKILL.md | Playwright testing |
| better-auth | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/better-auth/skills/main/better-auth/best-practices/SKILL.md | OAuth, magic links, auth |
| owasp-security | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agamm/claude-code-owasp/main/.claude/skills/owasp-security/SKILL.md | Security best practices |
| stripe | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stripe/ai/main/skills/stripe-best-practices/SKILL.md | Stripe integration |
Install fallback skills:
bash
mkdir -p .claude/skills/<name> curl -sfL -o .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md "<url>" test -s .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
Error Handling
When a download fails (HTTP 404, empty file, or curl error):
- •Remove the broken file so it doesn't look like a successful install:
bash
rm -f .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
- •Search for an alternative source. Use the skill name to find the real repo:
bash
gh search repos "<name> SKILL.md claude" --limit 5 --json fullName,description,url
- •Inspect candidates — look for a SKILL.md at common paths:
- •
SKILL.md(root) - •
skills/<name>/SKILL.md - •
.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
bashgh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/contents/ --jq '.[].name' - •
- •Download from the discovered source and verify again.
- •If no working source is found after searching, warn the user and move on to the next skill. Do not block on a single failure.