Agent Skills

Independent, reusable skills for coding agents. Install them with the open skills CLI—no custom installer required.

Read Avoiding agentic drift in large codebases for why these skills exist and how I use them in practice.

Install

List all skills:

npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --list

Install one skill (or copy a command from the table below):

npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill architecture-ownership

Use -g for a global installation. Supported agents include Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other Agent Skills clients.

Available Skills

Engineering

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
hard-cut	Replace legacy paths with one canonical implementation.	★★★★★ · 408 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill hard-cut
consolidate-test-suites	Put regression coverage in the owning test layer.	★★★★★ · 331 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill consolidate-test-suites
root-cause-finder	Trace failures to their first unintended cause.	★★★★★ · 159 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill root-cause-finder
architecture-ownership	Find the right owner for code and behavior.	★★★★★ · 142 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill architecture-ownership
find-duplicate-ownership	Find competing sources of truth.	★★★★☆ · 77 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill find-duplicate-ownership
search-context	Find useful reference repositories before implementing.	★★☆☆☆ · 6 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill search-context
clarify	Make complex technical material clear and actionable.	★★☆☆☆ · 2 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill clarify

Delegation

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
delegate-fable	Hand a review or bounded implementation to Fable through Herdr.	★★★☆☆ · 11 sessions · 130 calls	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill delegate-fable
delegate-grok	Hand a review or bounded implementation to Grok through Herdr.	★★☆☆☆ · 3 sessions · 47 calls	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill delegate-grok

Security

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
secleak-check	Scan for secrets and repository risks.	★★★☆☆ · 24 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill secleak-check
package-security-check	Audit JavaScript supply-chain risks.	★★★☆☆ · 20 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill package-security-check

Git

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
gitwhat	Show a concise repository and worktree status.	★★★★☆ · 34 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill gitwhat

Go

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
go-local-health	Run Go tests, coverage, and lint checks.	★☆☆☆☆ · 1 session	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill go-local-health

Electron

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
electron-live-test	Test Electron apps with native-devtools-mcp and CDP.	★☆☆☆☆ · 1 session	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill electron-live-test

Shell

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
shellck	Run ShellCheck on repository scripts.	★☆☆☆☆ · 1 session	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill shellck

Release

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
homebrew-publish	Prepare and validate Homebrew releases.	★☆☆☆☆ · 1 session	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill homebrew-publish

Specs

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
app-spec-packager	Create implementation-ready application specifications.	★★☆☆☆ · 2 sessions	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill app-spec-packager

Design

Skill	Purpose	Usage	Install
redesign-my-landingpage	Build and improve React landing pages.	★☆☆☆☆ · 1 session	npx skills add instructa/agent-skills --skill redesign-my-landingpage

Usage legend

★★★★★ 100+ sessions · ★★★★☆ 25–99 · ★★★☆☆ 10–24 · ★★☆☆☆ 2–9 · ★☆☆☆☆ 0–1

Delegation skills also show direct calls because one session can delegate several tasks.

Principles

• Public skills are installed with npx skills.
• Core engineering skills do not depend on PlanDB, Planr, Instructa, or AgentRig.
• Tool-specific skills only require tools needed for their stated purpose.
• Category folders do not change public skill names.

Links

• X/Twitter: @kregenrek
• Bluesky: @kevinkern.dev
• Instructa