Find And Install

Find & Install Skills

Trigger

This skill activates when you detect a capability gap that a community skill might fill, the user explicitly asks to find or install a skill and a task would benefit from a specialized skill you don't currently have

Searching for Skills

Run a search using the skills CLI:

npx skills find [query]

Review the results and assess trust level before suggesting:

• 🟢 VERIFIED (1000+ installs or known orgs like vercel-labs, anthropics, microsoft): Suggest confidently
• 🟡 COMMUNITY (50–999 installs): Suggest with a note about the install count
• 🔴 UNKNOWN (<50 installs): Show but warn the user - offer to preview the SKILL.md before installing

Installing a Skill

Once the user approves (or for 🟢 VERIFIED skills when you're confident it fits):

Step 1: Install globally

npx skills add <owner/repo@skill> -g -y

This places files into ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ or ~/.agents/skills/<name>/.

Step 2: Copy into {{portalSlug}} skills directory

cp -r ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ ~/.{{portalSlug}}/skills/<name>/

The {{portalName}} file watcher will detect the new directory and create the appropriate symlinks automatically.

Step 3: Update the skills manifest

Read ~/.{{portalSlug}}/skills.json, add the new skill entry, and write it back.

The manifest format:

{
  "installed": {
    "<name>": {
      "source": "<owner/repo@skill>",
      "installedAt": "<ISO 8601 timestamp>"
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Apply the skill immediately

Read the newly installed ~/.{{portalSlug}}/skills/<name>/SKILL.md and follow its instructions to complete the current task.

When No Skills Are Found

If npx skills find returns no results:

1. Offer to help the user directly with the task using your built-in capabilities
2. Suggest creating a custom skill if this is a recurring need (use the skill-creator skill)

Examples

User asks to deploy to Vercel:

npx skills find "vercel deploy"
# → vercel-labs/ai-skills@vercel-deploy (🟢 VERIFIED, 5200 installs)
npx skills add vercel-labs/ai-skills@vercel-deploy -g -y
cp -r ~/.claude/skills/vercel-deploy/ ~/.{{portalSlug}}/skills/vercel-deploy/
# → update skills.json → read SKILL.md → follow deploy instructions

User asks for an obscure skill:

npx skills find "arduino serial monitor"
# → random-user/arduino-tools@serial-monitor (🔴 UNKNOWN, 12 installs)
# → Warn user, offer to preview SKILL.md before installing

Source: hristo2612/jinn — distributed by TomeVault.