Find Skills by Vercel review: verdict, safety and alternatives
Find Skills is Vercel Labs' one-file Agent Skill that helps you find the skill for a task. It searches skills.sh with npx skills find and offers an install. We rate it Recommended with caveats, 70/100, with safety grade A.
- Skill
- Find Skills (vercel-labs/skills)
- Verdict
- Recommended with caveats
- Score
- 70/100
- Confidence
- Moderate
- Safety grade
- A
- Best for
- Claude Code or Codex users who want skill suggestions from skills.sh and review each install
- Poor fit
- Teams that need vetted or allow-listed sources; finding niche skills by what they do
- Reviewed version
- v1.7.0, commit 3694740
- Review date
- 2026-09-30
- Works in (verified)
- Claude Code, Codex
- Works in (claimed)
- Cursor, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode
- Status
- CLI v1.7.4 released 2026-10-19; SKILL.md unchanged since review
Get the skill: find-skills folder on GitHub · SKILL.md at the reviewed commit · skills.sh listing
What is the Find Skills skill?
The Find Skills skill is Vercel Labs' one-file Agent Skill for discovering other skills. It runs npx skills find against the skills.sh index, checks installs and source, then offers an install command.
Find Skills holds one SKILL.md, the instruction file behind what an Agent Skill is. It teaches the agent the Skills CLI, Vercel's npx skills package manager. The CLI searches skills.sh, the public skill index and leaderboard.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vercel Labs |
| Files | SKILL.md only, 5,472 bytes (about 1,368 tokens) |
| Licence | MIT |
| Reviewed | v1.7.0, commit 3694740, on 2026-09-30 |
| CLI commands it uses | find, add, update, init (all exist in the CLI source) |
| Installs | 3.6M on skills.sh (September 2026) |
| Copies | 2,464 SKILL.md copies in GitHub code search, original and forks included |
| Install line | npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/skills --skill find-skills |
The CLI offers Find Skills after a human's first interactive install (PR #1520), which explains much of the 3.6M. A note.com guide cited "2 million+" installs in June 2026; the counts differ by date. Two copies under other publishers also circulate: echoleesong on mcpmarket and kimyx0207's findskill on explainx.
Is Find Skills worth installing?
Yes, for suggestions you review yourself. Find Skills is worth installing at 70/100, Recommended with caveats, Moderate confidence. Tessl measured a 2.15x lift, but search misses indexed skills and vetting rests on popularity.
Tessl's registry evals measured that lift across only 2 scenarios. Find Skills has no code. Its picks are limited to what skills.sh search returns, gaps included. Compare it with other verdict-ranked Agent Skills, or read how we score.
| Criterion | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Effectiveness | 76 | Tessl: 95% impact, 2.15x baseline, Claude Sonnet 4.6, 2 scenarios. Search gaps hold it back. |
| Reliability | 62 | Indexed skills go missing from search. Exact names rank low. |
| Safety | 58 | No code, two audit passes. Snyk warns, and it suggests -g -y installs. |
| Efficiency | 82 | About 1,368 tokens, no linked files. The CLI banner adds noise (#1001). |
| Compatibility | 80 | Claude Code and Codex confirmed; Claude Desktop does not work. |
| Maintainability | 84 | 47 releases in 12 months, 100 contributors. |
| Setup friction | 88 | One command; the CLI offers it after a first install. |
| Search recall | 50 | #1688, #1735, #1968 and #1761 show missed skills. |
| Install safety (worst failure) | 50 | Vetting uses installs, publisher and stars only. |
| Trigger precision | 55 | Generic "how do I do X" triggers fire on ordinary tasks. |
| Command accuracy | 90 | Every command and --owner exists at the reviewed commit. |
| Instruction weight vs value | 84 | About 1,368 tokens for a 2.15x measured lift. |
| Adoption cost | 88 | Needs Node.js and npx only. |
What changed since our review?
Since our review, the Skills CLI shipped four releases, v1.7.1 to v1.7.4, between 6 and 19 October 2026. The Find Skills SKILL.md has not changed. The search issues we cite remain open.
- 2026-10-06: v1.7.1 treats Pi as a universal agent.
- 2026-10-09: v1.7.2 ships.
- 2026-10-19: v1.7.3 and v1.7.4 promote
skills syncto stable (#2539) and add recursive sync (#2446). - 2026-10-21: #1688, #1735, #1761 and #1968 stay open. The
skills/find-skills/folder last changed on 2026-07-10.
The CLI added telemetry endpoints (#2391) in these releases. The verdict stays unchanged.
How many tokens does Find Skills use?
Find Skills uses about 1,368 tokens per load when it triggers, and few skills use less. Our estimate for finding and installing one skill is 4,000 input and 600 output tokens. Each installed skill adds its own context.
| What | Tokens |
|---|---|
| Skill file, loaded each time the skill runs | 1,368 (SKILL.md at 3694740) |
| Finding and installing one skill, our estimate | 4,000 input, 600 output, 2 tasks a week |
Our cost estimate for a typical call is 6,368 input and 600 output tokens. The ASCII banner in find output adds tokens (#1001). Broad triggers load the skill on ordinary requests.
Is Find Skills safe to install?
Yes, the file itself is safe: Find Skills carries safety grade A, one Markdown file with no code. The risk is what it installs. It suggests global installs that skip confirmation prompts.
The file holds no scripts, hooks, MCP configs, environment variables or credentials. The CLI queries an undocumented skills.sh search endpoint (#1825) and clones repositories from GitHub. Four findings lower the safety score to 58:
- Install flags: it suggests
npx skills add <owner/repo@skill> -g -y, a global install with no prompt. - Missing review step: it never tells the agent to read the fetched SKILL.md or scripts.
- Popularity vetting: it trusts installs, publisher and stars, with a hard-coded "185K installs" example.
- Mixed audits: on skills.sh, Gen Agent Trust Hub and Socket pass it; Snyk warns.
Popularity is a weak filter. SkillSecurer (arXiv 2609.14079) found latent vulnerabilities in 17.6% of 954 popular skills.sh skills. The paper reports 84 of 100 findings confirmed. Learn how to vet a skill before you install it.
What does the community report about Find Skills?
The community reports search gaps in Find Skills. GitHub issues #1688, #1735, #1761 and #1968 show indexed skills missing from results. Tessl measured a 2.15x lift, and an HN user confirms Claude Code and Codex.
| Source | Claim | Date | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| PR #1594 | Removed a non-existent npx skills check command |
2026-07 | strong |
| Issue #1303 | Exact names ranked below description mentions | 2026-05 | strong |
| Issue #1761 | Terms like STROBE and CONSORT return 0 results | 2026-07 | strong |
| Issue #1688 | Indexed skills absent from skills find for days |
2026-07 | strong |
| PR #1748 | Truncation at 6 results fixed; shows up to 20 | 2026-07 | strong |
| Tessl evals | 95% impact, 2.15x baseline on Claude Sonnet 4.6, 2 scenarios | 2026-07 | strong |
| SkillSecurer | 17.6% of 954 popular skills had latent vulnerabilities | 2026-09 | strong |
| PR #1622 | Rewrite calling the trigger too broad; closed unmerged | 2026-07 | weak |
| Issue #1735 | Skill with a canonical page returns "No skills found" | 2026-07 | weak |
| Issue #1968 | Index shows 2 of 88 skills for one repo | 2026-08 | weak |
| Issue #1289 | Java search quality regressed, then fixed | 2026-05 | weak |
| Issue #1001 | ASCII banner wastes context tokens | 2026-04 | weak |
| Issue #1825 | Search endpoint is undocumented | 2026-07 | weak |
| PR #1520 | Offered only on human interactive installs | 2026-06 | weak |
| Tessl quality | 76%; broad trigger and redundant explainer flagged | 2026-09 | weak |
| skills.sh audits | Snyk Warn; Gen Agent Trust Hub and Socket Pass | 2026-09 | weak |
| HN 49595591 | User relies on the CLI for global installs across agents | 2026-09 | weak |
| HN 49599698 | Works in Claude Code and Codex, not Claude Desktop | 2026-09 | weak |
What are Find Skills' known failures?
Find Skills has three known failures at v1.7.0. Search misses indexed skills, with one repository showing 2 of 88. Description terms return zero results, and its trigger fires on generic requests.
- Missed skills: indexed skills do not appear in search (#1688, #1735, #1968, all open).
- Zero results for descriptions: search matches names and repos, not descriptions (#1761, open).
- Broad trigger: "how do I do X" fires on tasks the agent handles alone (PR #1622 closed unmerged; Tessl).
Three earlier faults are fixed. Exact-name ranking (#1303) closed on 2026-07-25. PR #1748 fixed truncation at 6 results. PR #1594 removed the stale skills check command. The worst case is an unvetted, vulnerable skill installed globally with no prompt, picked by install count.
Which agents does Find Skills work with?
Find Skills does work with Claude Code and Codex, the two agents we verified. The Skills CLI targets Cursor, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode and dozens more, with no published run yet. It does not work in Claude Desktop.
| Agent | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | Verified | HN 49599698 |
| Codex | Verified | HN 49599698 |
| Cursor, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode | Claimed | CLI agent targets |
| Gemini CLI, Antigravity CLI | Reported, unverified | note.com how-to |
| GitHub Copilot CLI in VS Code | Shown once | rajeevpentyala how-to |
| Claude Desktop | Not working | HN 49599698 |
Browse Claude Code skills by verdict, or see skills for the Claude apps.
How do you install Find Skills?
Install Find Skills with one command: npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/skills --skill find-skills. Add -a claude-code or -a codex to target one agent. You need Node.js, npx and network access to skills.sh and GitHub.
npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/skills --skill find-skills
npx skills add vercel-labs/skills@find-skills -a claude-code
npx skills add vercel-labs/skills@find-skills -a codexThe short form vercel-labs/skills@find-skills works. The form vercel-labs/find-skills fails, per issue #1618. The CLI offers Find Skills after your first interactive install. Our Claude Code skills setup guide explains where the files land.
How do you use Find Skills to find a skill?
You use Find Skills by asking your agent how to do a task, such as reviewing pull requests. It searches skills.sh, lists matches with installs and source, and offers an install. Check each skill first.
The SKILL.md runs six steps:
- Understand what the user needs.
- Check the skills.sh leaderboard first.
- Search with
npx skills find [query]. - Verify quality: 1K+ installs preferred, caution under 100.
- Present the options.
- Offer to install the chosen skill.
Its trigger phrases include "How do I do X" and "Find a skill for X". The manual equivalent is npx skills find [query] [--owner <owner>]. With no match, it suggests npx skills init to start your own skill.
Test it yourself:
- Ask for five varied capabilities, one with a niche domain term.
- Record whether the skill triggers.
- Note what
findreturns. - Check whether it asks before installing.
What are the alternatives to Find Skills?
The alternatives to Find Skills are browsing skills.sh yourself, agentskill-sh's ags CLI, and Anthropic's official skills repository. Verdict-ranked lists, like ours, add a quality and safety check that install counts lack.
| Option | What it is | Our status |
|---|---|---|
| skills.sh leaderboard | Manual browsing by installs | Index, not a verdict |
| agentskill-sh/ags | A separate skill search CLI | Not reviewed |
| anthropics/skills | Anthropic's official skills repository | Not reviewed as a finder |
| Our verdict lists | Skills ranked by evidence and safety grade | Verify AI Skills |
| Skill Seekers | Generates skills from docs | Conditional, 62 |
Find Skills ranks by installs and stars. We rank by evidence-based verdict and safety grade, shown in our verdict leaderboard.
Where is Find Skills on GitHub?
Find Skills is on GitHub in vercel-labs/skills at skills/find-skills/, beside the Skills CLI source. We reviewed release v1.7.0, commit 3694740. The repository now has 35,817 stars and ships CLI releases every few days.
- Repository: vercel-labs/skills, folder
skills/find-skills/, MIT licence. - Versions: v1.7.0 reviewed; v1.7.4 current (2026-10-19).
- Releases: 14 in 90 days and 47 in 12 months.
- Stars: 32,848 at review; 35,817 on 2026-10-21.
- Contributors: 100 on GitHub; agenticskills.io shows 3.
Common questions
Is Find Skills free?
Yes, it is MIT-licensed. It needs Node.js and npx.
Does Find Skills work in Claude Desktop?
No. A Hacker News user reports the CLI works in Claude Code and Codex, not Claude Desktop.
Does Find Skills read a skill before installing it?
No, it vets by installs, publisher and stars. Learn what a SKILL.md file contains and practise reading a SKILL.md before install.
Is there a Find Skills app or plugin?
No, it installs as a plain skill through the Skills CLI. No .claude-plugin manifest exists; skills.sh is the browser view.
Where does npx skills add put the skill?
It goes in the target agent's skills folder, per project or globally with -g. For Claude Code, that is a .claude/skills/ folder.
Does Find Skills search every skill?
No, it searches the skills.sh index only. Issue #1968 shows one repo with 2 of 88 skills indexed.