Find Skills

This skill helps you discover and install skills from the open agent skills ecosystem (https://skills.sh). Based on the find-skills skill by Vercel, adapted for this Nix-managed environment.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user:

• Asks "how do I do X" where X might be a common task with an existing skill
• Says "find a skill for X" or "is there a skill for X"
• Asks "can you do X" where X is a specialized capability
• Expresses interest in extending agent capabilities
• Wants to search for tools, templates, or workflows

How Skills Work in This Setup

All paths below (e.g. home/claude.nix, configs/claude/skills/) are relative to the nix-config directory.

Skills are split into two categories:

• Custom skills: Directories in configs/claude/skills/ committed to the nix-config repo. These are skills we author and maintain.
• External skills: Installed from skills.sh via npx skills add. These are managed by an activation script in home/claude.nix and are gitignored (they appear as symlinks in the skills directory, not regular directories).

The activation script defines a list called externalSkills. On every nh darwin switch --no-nom, it removes all Claude Code external skills and reinstalls only the declared ones. This keeps external skills declarative and reproducible.

Finding Skills

Step 1: Search

Run the find command with a relevant query:

npx skills find [query]

For example:

• "how do I make my React app faster?" -> npx skills find react performance
• "can you help me with PR reviews?" -> npx skills find pr review
• "I need to create a changelog" -> npx skills find changelog

You can also browse skills at https://skills.sh/

Step 2: Present Options

When you find relevant skills, present them with:

1. The skill name and what it does
2. The install command
3. A link to learn more

Step 3: Install

To try a skill immediately:

npx skills add <owner/repo> --skill <name> -g -a claude-code -y

Always pass -a claude-code to avoid installing for other agents. The -g flag installs globally (user-level) and -y skips prompts.

Step 4: Make It Permanent

If the user wants to keep the skill across rebuilds, add it to the externalSkills list in home/claude.nix:

externalSkills = [
  "anthropics/skills --skill pdf"
  "owner/repo --skill new-skill"  # <- add here
];

Then nh darwin switch --no-nom will install it on every activation.

Creating a Custom Skill

If no existing skill fits, or the user wants to build their own:

1. Create a directory in configs/claude/skills/<skill-name>/
2. Add a SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter (name and description) and instructions
3. The gitignore allowlists directories automatically, so it will be tracked in git
4. Optionally add references/, scripts/, or other supporting files

When No Skills Are Found

If no relevant skills exist:

1. Acknowledge that no existing skill was found
2. Offer to help with the task directly
3. Suggest creating a custom skill if it's a repeatable workflow