How to find skills for Claude, ChatGPT and other AI agents

Most people search for a skill name they have heard of. A better start is to write down the result you want: a clean slide deck, a tighter email, a spreadsheet summary, a code review. Then look for skills that produce that result.

Our categories are organised this way. If you write for a living, look at writing. If you do research, see research. For files, see PDF and Excel.

There are four places, and each has trade-offs.

• Inside your app. Claude has built-in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF skills. Codex can install from OpenAI's curated list by name. Check there first.
• A curated site, like this one, where each skill is explained and picked.
• A ranked directory, where you can sort by installs to see what is popular. Our guide to the biggest public directory shows how that compares.
• Command-line search. The skills tool can search from a terminal, which is handy for developers. See npx skills.

Skills are instructions the AI follows, and some include scripts. A short routine saves trouble.

• Read what it does. If you cannot tell from the description, move on.
• Check the publisher. Known authors and companies are a safer start.
• Check the licence. You may want to use the skill at work or share it.
• Look at what it can touch. Does it run scripts or use the web?
• Look for an example of the output it produces.
• Check it works with your app. Some skills use features only one app supports.

Skill descriptions describe a task and a trigger, so search the way you would talk. Words like review, summarise, rewrite, audit, draft and convert work better than clever names. If a site offers both a keyword and a topic filter, use the topic first and the keyword second.

You can also ask your agent. In Codex, you can type a dollar sign and the skill name, and Claude can use a skill whenever your request matches its description. That description is what the AI reads, so a skill with a vague description gets picked poorly.

If you want somewhere safe to begin, these are everyday picks: Humanizer to make drafts sound less machine-made, SEO Audit for checking a web page, Content Strategy for planning, and Superpowers for developers who want a ready-made workflow.

Install one. Try it on a real task. Keep it only if it earns its place. That is the whole method.

Sometimes the skill you want does not exist, or the ones that exist are not quite right. You have two good options. The first is to adapt: open the skill's SKILL.md file, which is plain text, and change a few lines so it matches how you work. The format is explained in what SKILL.md is.

The second is to make your own. A skill is just a folder with a file in it, and most people can write a useful one in an afternoon. The skill-creator skill will interview you about your workflow and draft the file. In ChatGPT's desktop app you can describe the workflow to its own skill creator and get a draft back. Start with the task you repeat most often and keep the first version small.

Whichever way you go, test with a real task and note what went wrong. A skill improves by editing the instructions after each miss, the same way a written procedure improves at work.