16 KiBLFS
16 KiBLFS
State of AI Coding Agent Skills Ecosystem
SkillsBench Research - January 2026
1. Executive Summary
We analyzed skills across 5,985 GitHub repos (47,153+ skills total) supporting multiple AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Factory, Goose, Amp).
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Total skills collected | 47,153+ |
| Total GitHub repos | 5,985 |
| Repos with 1K+ stars | 89 |
| Repos with 10K+ stars | 16 |
| Official skills (Anthropic + OpenAI) | 26 |
| Semantically unique (90% threshold) | 40,721 |
| Duplicate rate | 13.6% |
2. What Are Skills?
Skills are SKILL.md markdown files that teach AI coding agents how to use tools effectively.
| Aspect | Skills | MCP Servers |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Teach agents patterns & workflows | Provide tool access |
| Format | SKILL.md markdown | JSON-RPC protocol |
| Location | Agent-specific directories | Config files |
Multi-Agent Skill Support
Skills are used by multiple AI coding agents, each with their own directory:
| Agent | Path | Repos |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | .claude/skills/ |
5,897 |
| Codex | .codex/skills/ |
98 |
| OpenCode | .opencode/skill/ |
65 |
| Factory | .factory/skills/ |
34 |
| Portable (Goose/Amp) | .agents/skills/ |
27 |
| Goose | .goose/skills/ |
1 |
Total unique repos: 5,985 (some repos support multiple agents)
Top Repos with Skills (Any Agent)
| Repo | Stars | Skills | Agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| langgenius/dify | 125K | 2 | claude |
| pytorch/pytorch | 96K | 4 | claude |
| openai/codex | 55K | 2 | claude |
| anthropics/claude-code | 52K | 10 | claude |
| anomalyco/opencode | 52K | 1 | opencode |
| tldraw/tldraw | 44K | 1 | claude |
| anthropics/skills | 34K | 17 | claude |
| yamadashy/repomix | 21K | 4 | claude |
| langfuse/langfuse | 20K | 2 | claude |
| obra/superpowers | 14K | 14 | claude |
Full data: all_repos_with_skills.json
3. Data Sources
| Source | Skills | Type |
|---|---|---|
| SkillsMP.com (full API, 472 pages) | 46,942 | Aggregator |
| K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills | 142 | Curated |
| netresearch/claude-code-marketplace | 22 | Curated |
| anthropics/skills | 17 | Official |
| obra/superpowers | 14 | Curated |
| awesome-claude-skills (community) | 6 | Curated |
| Total unique | 47,143 |
Additional Skills Registries
| Registry | Skills | GitHub Repos | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| SkillsMP.com | 47,143 | 6,324 | Full API access, used for analysis |
| Smithery.ai/skills | ~28,241 | - | Client-side rendered, no public API |
Registry Overlap Analysis: We verified 1,100 randomly sampled SkillsMP skills against Smithery - 100% were found on both registries. Both index SKILL.md files from GitHub, so Smithery's ~28K skills are a subset of SkillsMP's 47K. We used SkillsMP for analysis due to full API access.
GitHub Repository Coverage
We conducted a comprehensive GitHub code search for SKILL.md files, combining:
- SkillsMP aggregated data (5,586 repos)
- Direct GitHub code search (301 new repos not in SkillsMP)
| Category | Repos | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Total unique repos | 5,887 | Combined SkillsMP + GitHub direct search |
| Non-skill-focused (real software) | 3,661 | Real software projects with skills |
| Skill-focused projects | 2,226 | Agent/skill-related projects |
| From SkillsMP | 5,586 | Aggregator index |
| From GitHub direct (new) | 301 | Not in SkillsMP |
| Overlap | 248 | In both sources |
Top Non-Skill-Focused Repos (Real Software Projects Using Skills)
| Repo | Stars | Skills | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| langgenius/dify | 124,943 | 2 | Agentic workflow platform |
| pytorch/pytorch | 96,381 | 4 | PyTorch ML framework |
| openai/codex | 55,349 | 2 | OpenAI Codex CLI |
| tldraw/tldraw | 44,467 | 1 | Infinite canvas SDK |
| payloadcms/payload | 39,727 | 1 | Headless CMS |
| yamadashy/repomix | 21,017 | 4 | Repo packer for LLMs |
| langfuse/langfuse | 20,226 | 2 | LLM observability |
| longbridge/gpui-component | 9,604 | 3 | GPUI components |
| steveyegge/beads | 8,611 | 2 | Programming language |
| redpanda-data/connect | 8,543 | 3 | Streaming data platform |
| bytedance/flowgram.ai | 7,513 | 1 | ByteDance workflow tool |
| NangoHQ/nango | 6,287 | 1 | Integration API |
| zenml-io/zenml | 5,131 | 1 | MLOps platform |
| clidey/whodb | 4,434 | 3 | Database tool |
Bold = newly discovered via GitHub direct search
Top Skill-Focused Repos (Official + Community)
| Repo | Stars | Skills | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| anthropics/claude-code | 52,141 | 10 | Claude Code official |
| anthropics/skills | 34,430 | 17 | Official Anthropic skills |
| obra/superpowers | 14,167 | 14 | Popular skills collection |
| langchain-ai/deepagents | 7,849 | 4 | LangChain agents |
| K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills | 4,663 | 142 | Scientific skills (curated) |
| gptme/gptme | 4,136 | 2 | GPT terminal agent |
| openai/skills | 1,249 | 3 | OpenAI official skills |
| huggingface/skills | 792 | 5 | HuggingFace skills |
Full data: repos_comprehensive.json
Curated vs Aggregated
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Curated sources | 201 | Hand-picked, verified repos |
| SkillsMP aggregated | 46,942 | Auto-scraped GitHub SKILL.md |
Note: SkillsMP automatically indexes any GitHub repo containing SKILL.md files.
Claude Code Adoption in Major Open Source Projects
We analyzed 88 major open source projects for Claude Code adoption (CLAUDE.md files and .claude/ directories):
| Metric | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| Major repos checked | 88 | - |
| With CLAUDE.md | 14 | 15.9% |
| With .claude/ directory | 7 | 8.0% |
| With SKILL.md files | 2 | 2.3% |
Top Major Repos with Claude Code Adoption:
| Repo | Stars | CLAUDE.md | .claude/ | Skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vercel/next.js | 136,985 | ✓ | ✓ | - |
| pytorch/pytorch | 96,381 | ✓ | ✓ | 4 |
| oven-sh/bun | 86,015 | ✓ | ✓ | 5 |
| ggerganov/llama.cpp | 92,533 | ✓ | - | - |
| prisma/prisma | 44,992 | ✓ | - | - |
| jestjs/jest | 45,248 | ✓ | - | - |
| pingcap/tidb | 39,562 | ✓ | - | - |
| cockroachdb/cockroach | 31,701 | ✓ | ✓ | - |
| biomejs/biome | 23,008 | ✓ | ✓ | - |
| chakra-ui/chakra-ui | 40,119 | ✓ | ✓ | - |
| mongodb/mongo | 27,963 | ✓ | - | - |
| denoland/deno | 105,746 | ✓ | - | - |
| langchain-ai/langchain | 123,577 | ✓ | - | - |
| shadcn-ui/ui | 104,203 | - | ✓ | - |
Key Insight: Major projects like Next.js, PyTorch, and Bun have full Claude Code integration with both CLAUDE.md project instructions and .claude/ directories. However, only 2 of 88 major projects (2.3%) have custom skills, suggesting skills are primarily created by dedicated skill repositories rather than integrated into mainstream projects.
Full data: major_repos_claude_adoption.json
4. Deduplication Analysis
Exact Name Duplicates
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Unique names | 32,222 |
| Names with duplicates | 5,615 |
| Total duplicate entries | 14,905 |
Top Duplicated Skill Names
| Skill Name | Count |
|---|---|
| skill-creator | 223 |
| code-review | 157 |
| frontend-design | 151 |
| brainstorming | 92 |
| git-workflow | 86 |
| testing | 78 |
| code-reviewer | 74 |
| systematic-debugging | 65 |
| test-driven-development | 59 |
| writing-plans | 53 |
Semantic Duplicates (Full Embedding Analysis)
Using OpenAI text-embedding-3-large (512 dims) on ALL 47,153 skills:
| Threshold | Unique | Duplicates | Dup Rate | Clusters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 42,071 | 5,082 | 10.8% | 3,197 |
| 90% | 40,721 | 6,432 | 13.6% | - |
| 85% | 38,495 | 8,658 | 18.4% | - |
| 80% | 34,758 | 12,395 | 26.3% | - |
Semantically unique skills: ~40,721 (at 90% threshold)
Top Duplicate Clusters (95% threshold)
| Skill | Copies | Most Duplicated |
|---|---|---|
| frontend-design | 50 | Anthropic official + many forks |
| skill-creator | 47 | Meta-skill copied widely |
| brainstorming | 38 | obra/superpowers fork |
5. Skills by Category
| Category | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript/TypeScript | 23,271 | 49.4% |
| DevOps/Infrastructure | 5,497 | 11.7% |
| Other | 3,951 | 8.4% |
| Python | 2,591 | 5.5% |
| AI/ML | 2,284 | 4.8% |
| Frontend/UI | 1,476 | 3.1% |
| Testing | 1,444 | 3.1% |
| Git/Version Control | 1,216 | 2.6% |
| API | 1,020 | 2.2% |
| Database | 976 | 2.1% |
| Code Quality | 872 | 1.8% |
| Documentation | 647 | 1.4% |
| Security | 589 | 1.2% |
| CLI/Shell | 432 | 0.9% |
| Cloud | 398 | 0.8% |
| Java/Kotlin | 321 | 0.7% |
| Go | 287 | 0.6% |
| C/C++ | 198 | 0.4% |
| Rust | 156 | 0.3% |
| Ruby | 89 | 0.2% |
6. Key Insights
1. JavaScript/TypeScript Dominates
- 49% of all skills target JS/TS ecosystem
- Reflects Claude Code's primary use case
2. High Duplication Rate
- 5,615 skill names appear multiple times
- "skill-creator" alone has 223 copies
- Many are forks/copies of popular skills
3. DevOps is Second Largest
- 11.7% of skills are DevOps/Infrastructure
- Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform patterns
4. AI/ML Growing Fast
- 2,284 skills (4.8%) target AI/ML
- LLM integration, model training patterns
5. Testing Is Underrepresented
- Only 3.1% despite importance
- Opportunity for benchmark tasks
7. Official vs Community Skills
| Source | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| anthropics/skills | 17 | Official reference |
| Curated community | 184 | Quality repos |
| SkillsMP aggregated | 46,942 | Auto-scraped |
Ratio: 1 official : 2,773 community skills
Official Anthropic Skills (17)
| Skill | Category |
|---|---|
| docx | Document |
| Document | |
| pptx | Document |
| xlsx | Document |
| algorithmic-art | Creative |
| canvas-design | Creative |
| slack-gif-creator | Creative |
| theme-factory | Creative |
| frontend-design | Development |
| web-artifacts-builder | Development |
| mcp-builder | Development |
| webapp-testing | Development |
| brand-guidelines | Communication |
| internal-comms | Communication |
| doc-coauthoring | Communication |
| skill-creator | Meta |
| + 1 more | Various |
Curated Scientific Skills (142)
From K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills:
- Bioinformatics: biopython, scanpy, pysam, anndata
- Cheminformatics: rdkit, deepchem, diffdock
- ML/AI: pytorch-lightning, transformers, shap
- Databases: uniprot, pubchem, alphafold-database
- Visualization: matplotlib, plotly, seaborn
Curated Development Skills
From obra/superpowers (14):
- brainstorming, writing-plans, executing-plans
- test-driven-development, systematic-debugging
- code-review, git-worktrees
From netresearch (22):
- typo3-*, php-modernization, security-audit
- git-workflow, jira-integration
8. Recommendations for SkillsBench
High-Value Task Categories
Based on skill prevalence and deduplication analysis:
| Category | Skills Count | Task Potential |
|---|---|---|
| JS/TS Development | 23,271 | High - many patterns |
| DevOps/Docker | 5,497 | High - measurable |
| Python | 2,591 | High - common |
| Testing | 1,444 | Medium - underserved |
| Database | 976 | High - verifiable |
| Security | 589 | High - critical |
Specific Task Ideas
- code-review (157 skills) → Automated PR review task
- testing/tdd (78+59 skills) → Test generation task
- git-workflow (86 skills) → Branch management task
- systematic-debugging (65 skills) → Bug diagnosis task
- frontend-design (151 skills) → UI implementation task
9. Visualizations
Generated visualizations in docs/skills-research/:
| File | Description |
|---|---|
full_category_distribution.png |
Skills by category (47K) |
top_skill_names.png |
Most common skill names |
duplicate_analysis.png |
Deduplication statistics |
tsne_clusters.png |
Embedding visualization |
10. Data Files
| File | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|
all_skills_combined.json |
22MB | Full 47,143 skills (all sources) |
curated_skills.json |
61KB | 201 curated skills only |
all_skills_comprehensive.json |
22MB | SkillsMP data |
repos_comprehensive.json |
2MB | 5,887 repos (merged SkillsMP + GitHub direct) |
github_skills_direct.json |
200KB | 549 repos from direct GitHub search |
full_dedup_results.json |
50KB | Full 47K embedding dedup results |
full_analysis.json |
8KB | Category/duplicate analysis |
detailed_duplicates.json |
20KB | Duplicate clusters |
skillsmp_smithery_verification.json |
1KB | 1,100 skill overlap verification |
major_repos_claude_adoption.json |
50KB | 88 major repos Claude Code adoption |
all_agent_skills.json |
100KB | 551 repos with agent-specific directories |
all_repos_with_skills.json |
3MB | 5,985 repos unified (all agents) |
11. Methodology
- Data sources:
- SkillsMP.com API (472 pages, full pagination) - 5,586 repos
- GitHub direct code search (
path:.claude/skills/,filename:skill.md triggers) - 301 additional repos - Curated repos via
ghCLI (anthropics, K-Dense-AI, obra, netresearch) - awesome-claude-skills list
- Comprehensive search: Combined aggregator (SkillsMP) with direct GitHub search to ensure no major repos missed
- Embedding model: OpenAI text-embedding-3-large (512 dims)
- Deduplication: Full 47,153 skills (not sampled) using sklearn NearestNeighbors
- Dedup thresholds: 95%, 90%, 85%, 80% cosine similarity
- Repo categorization: Keyword-based classification into skill-focused vs non-skill-focused
- Date: January 2026
12. Conclusion
The Claude Skills ecosystem has ~40,721 semantically unique skills (at 90% similarity threshold) across 5,887 GitHub repos, heavily weighted toward JavaScript/TypeScript (49%) and DevOps (12%).
Key findings for SkillsBench:
- 5,887 repos have SKILL.md files (comprehensive GitHub + SkillsMP search)
- 3,661 non-skill-focused repos (real software projects like dify, pytorch, tldraw)
- langgenius/dify (125K stars) and tldraw (44K stars) are top adopters
- JavaScript/TypeScript dominates → focus benchmark tasks here
- Security and Testing are underrepresented → opportunity
- Community has created 1,813x more skills than official (26 Anthropic + OpenAI)
- ~13.6% semantic duplication rate at 90% threshold
13. Research Questions
See RESEARCH_QUESTIONS.md for detailed analysis of:
| Question | Focus | Status |
|---|---|---|
| RQ1: Do skills help agents perform better? | Skill effectiveness | Needs benchmark data |
| RQ2: Can agents compose multiple skills? | Skill composition | Design target set |
| RQ3: What is the state of the skills ecosystem? | Ecosystem analysis | Complete |
RQ3 Findings (this report):
- 47,153 skills collected from 7 sources (incl. anthropics/skills + openai/skills)
- 40,721 semantically unique (90% threshold) - FULL dedup, not sampled
- 13.6% duplication rate (6,432 duplicates across 3,197 clusters)
- Top duplicate clusters: frontend-design (50), skill-creator (47), brainstorming (38)
- JavaScript/TypeScript dominates (49%), Testing underrepresented (3.1%)
Key Gap: No existing benchmark measures skill effectiveness. SkillsBench fills this gap.
Research for SkillsBench paper - January 2026