Skills

Skills are reusable prompt templates that extend the capabilities of your AI coding assistants. They allow you to share and install common workflows like React best practices, web design guidelines, PDF processing, and more across projects and teams.

Context7 maintains a registry of skills at context7.com/skills that can be installed directly into your AI coding assistant with a single command.

What Are Skills?

Skills follow the Agent Skills open standard — a specification that works across multiple AI coding tools. A skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file with instructions that your AI assistant loads when relevant.

Why use skills?

• Standardize workflows: Ensure consistent code reviews, commit messages, or documentation across your team
• Share expertise: Package domain knowledge (e.g., "how we handle authentication") as reusable prompts
• Save time: Install pre-built skills instead of repeatedly explaining the same patterns to your AI assistant

Popular skills:

The Context7 Skills Registry

The Context7 Skills Registry is a searchable marketplace of skills indexed from GitHub repositories. Each skill is identified by its repository path (e.g., /anthropics/skills) and skill name.

When browsing or searching skills, you'll see:

CLI

You can interact with the registry directly from your terminal using the ctx7 CLI. No configuration needed — most commands work without authentication.

Discover and install skills:

# Search the registry by keyword
ctx7 skills search pdf
ctx7 skills search "react testing"

# Browse all skills in a specific repository
ctx7 skills info /anthropics/skills

# Install a skill interactively (prompts you to pick)
ctx7 skills install /anthropics/skills

# Install a specific skill by name
ctx7 skills install /anthropics/skills pdf

# Get suggestions based on your project's dependencies
ctx7 skills suggest

Manage installed skills:

# List skills installed in the current project
ctx7 skills list

# List skills installed for a specific client
ctx7 skills list --claude
ctx7 skills list --cursor

# Remove a skill
ctx7 skills remove pdf

Generate a custom skill with AI:

# Requires login — opens an interactive generation flow
ctx7 login
ctx7 skills generate

All install commands accept --claude, --cursor, --universal, and --global flags to target a specific client or install location.

See the CLI reference for the full flag reference and examples.

Trust & Security

Context7 vets every skill in the registry before it reaches you — both through automated scanning and community-driven quality signals.

Trust Scores

Every skill has a trust score from 0 to 10 that reflects the reliability of its source.

Higher scores indicate skills from reputable sources with community validation. Trust scores are visible in search results and install prompts so you can make an informed decision before installing.

Security Features

Context7 automatically scans skills for potential security issues before they appear in the registry:

• Prompt injection detection: Skills containing potentially malicious instructions are blocked from installation
• Blocked skill warnings: When viewing a repository, you'll see how many skills were blocked due to security concerns
• Clear error messages: If you try to install a blocked skill, you'll receive a specific warning explaining why

Skill File Structure

Each skill is a directory containing at minimum a SKILL.md file:

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md           # Main instructions (required)
├── templates/         # Optional templates
├── examples/          # Optional example outputs
└── scripts/           # Optional executable scripts

SKILL.md Format

Skills use YAML frontmatter followed by markdown instructions:

---
name: my-skill
description: What this skill does and when to use it
---

Instructions for the AI assistant go here.

Use markdown formatting, code examples, and clear steps.

The markdown body contains the actual instructions your AI assistant follows when the skill is invoked.

Supported Clients

The CLI automatically detects installed AI coding assistants and offers to install skills for them.

Project vs Global:

• Project skills (default): Installed in your current project directory, available only in that project
• Global skills (--global): Installed in your home directory, available across all projects

Managing Skills

Use the ctx7 CLI to install, search, generate, and remove skills. See the CLI reference for all commands.

# Quick start
npx ctx7 skills search pdf
npx ctx7 skills install /anthropics/skills pdf

Troubleshooting

Permission Denied

If you see permission errors when installing or removing skills:

# Fix directory permissions
sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.claude/skills

Skill Blocked Due to Prompt Injection

If a skill is blocked, it contains content flagged as potentially malicious. This is a security feature — the skill cannot be installed.

Error: This skill contains potentially malicious content and cannot be installed.

Consider using an alternative skill or contacting the skill author.

Client Not Detected

If your AI coding assistant isn't detected, ensure its configuration directory exists:

# For Claude Code
mkdir -p .claude

# For Cursor
mkdir -p .cursor

Authentication Issues

If login fails or tokens expire:

ctx7 logout
ctx7 login

Next Steps