openskills: install a Claude Code skill once, run it from Cursor, Windsurf, or anything else

What it is

openskills is a CLI that turns Anthropic's SKILL.md format into a universal AGENTS.md file that any AI coding agent can read. One install command, one sync, and the skill is available in Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode, Aider — whatever's open on your machine.

When it actually helps

If your team runs a mix of agents — some on Claude Code, some on Cursor, one stubborn colleague still on Aider — you've already hit the fragmentation problem. You build a solid deploy-check skill, wire it up in .claude/skills/, and then discover it just doesn't exist for anyone using a different tool. openskills solves the distribution layer: you install once with npx openskills install <source>, run npx openskills sync, and the skill surfaces in every agent that reads AGENTS.md. The companion n-skills marketplace gives you a curated index to browse and install community skills the same way. At 10.7k GitHub stars, the ecosystem is clearly finding an audience.

The real caveat

The core design choice here is static files over a live server — SKILL.md is simpler to distribute than MCP, but it means skills can't make dynamic tool calls or maintain session state the way an MCP server can. You're also trusting that each agent on your machine actually reads AGENTS.md, which isn't guaranteed across every tool or every version. Critically: if an agent ignores AGENTS.md, openskills does nothing and says nothing — no error, no warning, just silence. You need Node.js 20.6+ and Git installed, and if you're pulling skills from private repos, you'll need credentials wired up yourself. It's also not affiliated with Anthropic — it implements their specification, not their product.

# Install globally
npm i -g openskills

# Or run without installing
npx openskills install anthropics/skills
npx openskills sync

# Install from any GitHub repo
npx openskills install numman-ali/n-skills

Where to find it

Built by numman-ali. Repo at github.com/numman-ali/openskills, also available via Homebrew (brew install openskills). The companion skill marketplace lives at github.com/numman-ali/n-skills. Not affiliated with Anthropic.