| name | find-skills |
| description | Discover/install NEW agent skills from external sources (skills.sh). Use for capabilities you lack, e.g. "find a skill for X". Do NOT use to list skills you already have; see `<available_skills>`. |
Find skills
When to use this skill
- The user asks "find a skill for X", "is there a skill that does X"
- The user asks "how do I do X" where X is a common task with a likely existing skill
- The user wants to extend Horizon's capabilities with a new skill
Before searching externally, check the <available_skills> block in your
context — the user may already have a relevant skill installed.
Step 1 — check the leaderboard
Before running any CLI command, check skills.sh to see
whether a well-known skill already covers the domain. The leaderboard ranks by
total installs, surfacing the most popular and battle-tested options.
Step 2 — search for skills
If the leaderboard doesn't cover the user's need, search via the Skills CLI:
bash(command="npx --yes skills find <query>")
Examples:
| User says | Search |
|---|
| "make my React app faster" | npx --yes skills find react performance |
| "help with PR reviews" | npx --yes skills find pr review |
| "create a changelog" | npx --yes skills find changelog |
If npx is unavailable the command will fail — fall back to browsing
skills.sh manually and pasting the SKILL.md content.
Step 3 — verify quality before recommending
Never recommend a skill based solely on search results.
- Install count — prefer 1 000+ installs; treat anything under 100 with skepticism
- Source reputation — official organisations (
vercel-labs, anthropics,
microsoft) are more trustworthy than unknown authors
- GitHub stars — check the source repo; a skill from a repo with <100 stars
is a yellow flag
Step 4 — present the option to the user
I found a skill that might help: "react-best-practices" from Vercel Engineering
provides React and Next.js performance guidelines (185K installs).
Shall I install it?
Only proceed to installation after the user confirms.
Step 5 — install
Option A — write SKILL.md directly (always works)
If you have the skill content (pasted by the user, retrieved from skills.sh,
or constructed from the search result):
write(".agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md", content)
load_skill(action="reload")
write creates the directory if it does not exist. load_skill(action="reload")
refreshes the <available_skills> catalog (plus extensions and manifest) on
the next turn.
Option B — install via npx (requires Node.js)
First check whether npx is available:
bash(command="which npx")
If it is, install the skill. Select a single skill from a multi-skill repo with
the @<skill> suffix (omit it to take the whole repo):
bash(command="npx --yes skills add <owner/repo>@<skill-name> -y")
The Skills CLI stages the skill (with its references/, assets/, and
scripts/ subdirs) under .agents/skills/<skill-name>/ — exactly where Horizon
loads skills from — so no move is needed. Just refresh:
load_skill(action="reload")
The staged directory name MUST match the name: field in the SKILL.md
frontmatter — _load_skill_from_dir validates that and skips mismatched
skills.
Step 6 — confirm activation
After load_skill(action="reload") returns (look for the new skill in
loaded), tell the user:
The "<name>" skill is now installed. It will appear in your
<available_skills> catalog on the next turn.
When no skills are found
- Acknowledge that no existing skill was found
- Offer to help directly using general capabilities
- Offer to write a custom skill for them:
bash(command="npx --yes skills init my-skill-name")
Or skip the CLI and author one manually — write a SKILL.md following the
policy or workspace skills as examples.
Common skill categories
| Category | Search terms |
|---|
| Web development | react, nextjs, typescript, css, tailwind |
| Testing | testing, jest, playwright, e2e |
| DevOps | deploy, docker, kubernetes, ci-cd |
| Documentation | docs, readme, changelog, api-docs |
| Code quality | review, lint, refactor, best-practices |
| Design | ui, ux, design-system, accessibility |
