How to Install Claude Skills in Claude Code, Cursor and Codex (Skills Folder Paths)

To install Claude skills you copy a folder, not a plugin. Each skill is one folder with a SKILL.md file (a short name and description frontmatter, then plain Markdown instructions) and an optional references/ folder the agent opens only when it needs it. Claude Code, Cursor and Codex all read the same open Agent Skills format, so one skill works in all three. What changes is the skills folder each agent looks in. This guide gives those paths from each tool's docs, then installs two free skills from our Claude SEO skills as the example.

Short answer: put the skill's folder (the one that contains SKILL.md) inside your agent's skills folder: .claude/skills/ for Claude Code, .cursor/skills/ or .agents/skills/ for Cursor, .agents/skills/ for Codex. Use the ~/ version of the same folder to make it available in every project. Or let the skills CLI do it: npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --skill <name> -a <agent>.

Agent	Project folder	Global folder	How to check
Claude Code	.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md	~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md	Run /skills (or ask "What skills are available?")
Cursor	.cursor/skills/ or .agents/skills/	~/.cursor/skills/ or ~/.agents/skills/ (also reads .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/ and their ~/ versions for compatibility; only ~/.cursor/skills/ syncs to Cloud Agents)	Customize → Skills, or type / in Agent chat
Codex	.agents/skills/ (scanned from the working directory up to the repo root)	~/.agents/skills/ (admin: /etc/codex/skills)	Run /skills or type $ in Codex CLI or the IDE extension

Sources: the Claude Code skills docs, the Cursor skills docs and the Codex skills docs, checked on 4 November 2026.

What is a Claude skill, exactly?

A skill is a playbook your coding agent loads on demand. At the start of a session the agent reads only each skill's name and description. When your request matches a description, it loads the rest of that SKILL.md, and opens references/ only when a step points there. So a folder full of skills costs almost nothing in context until you ask for the work.

The Claude Code docs describe the description as what Claude uses to decide when to apply a skill, and recommend putting the key use case first. The skill-writing guide covers how to create a Claude skill with a description that triggers at the right time.

What else do the docs say about each skills folder?

Three details from the same pages:

• Claude Code loads .claude/skills/ from the directory where you start it and every parent up to the repository root, and picks up edits in the current session. If the skills folder did not exist when the session started, run /reload-skills.
• Cursor syncs only ~/.cursor/skills/ to Cloud Agents, so use it for personal skills you also want in the cloud.
• Codex picks up new skills automatically; if one doesn't appear, restart Codex.

Should you install a skill per project or globally?

Install in the project folder when the skill belongs to one site: its rules, its checks, its review steps. Commit the folder and everyone who opens the repository gets the same skill, reviewed like any other file. That suits most SEO work, because what counts as "done" depends on the site.

Install globally when the skill is about how you work rather than about one site. skill-review, which audits any SKILL.md, is a good example: you will want it in every repository.

If the same skill name exists in both places, the agent has to pick one. In Claude Code the personal (global) copy wins over the project copy, so an old global copy can silently shadow the version your team just updated. Keep one copy per skill name.

How do you install Claude skills with npx skills add?

The open-source skills CLI installs skills from a GitHub repository into the right folder for each agent. It needs Node.js 22.20 or later. Run it from the project root.

# list the skills in the free repo without installing anything
npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --list

# one skill, one agent, project scope
npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --skill skill-review -a claude-code
npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --skill search-change-triage -a cursor
npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --skill search-change-triage -a codex

# global scope: add -g
npx skills add TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free --skill skill-review -g -a claude-code

The pattern is npx skills add <owner/repo> --skill <name> -a <agent>, where <agent> is claude-code, cursor or codex. Two behaviours to expect:

• By default the CLI keeps one canonical copy and symlinks it into each agent's folder. Pass --copy if you want independent copies, for example in a repository where symlinks are a problem.
• For Cursor, a project install lands in .agents/skills/, which Cursor also reads. You don't need a second copy in .cursor/skills/.

The two skills in the free repository are MIT-licensed: skill-review and search-change-triage.

How do you install a skill by hand?

Copying works everywhere and needs no tools. Copy the whole folder, not just SKILL.md, so the references/ files come with it:

git clone https://github.com/TommyBez/agent-skills-pack-free
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -R agent-skills-pack-free/skills/skill-review .claude/skills/

Swap .claude/skills/ for .cursor/skills/ or .agents/skills/ for the other agents. For the paid pack, the zip unpacks to an agent-skills-pack/ folder with one subfolder per skill; copy the subfolders you want, for example cp -R agent-skills-pack/technical-seo-2026-delta .claude/skills/.

Two rules keep the agent from missing a skill:

1. The layout is <skills folder>/<skill-name>/SKILL.md. Don't copy the unzipped parent folder itself, or every SKILL.md ends up one level too deep.
2. Keep the folder name equal to the name in the frontmatter.

How do you check that the agent found the skill?

Look before you test, with the check in the table's last column: /skills in Claude Code, Customize → Skills in Cursor, /skills or $ in Codex. If a new skill is missing, check the folder depth first, then restart the agent.

Then test the trigger, not just the file. Ask for the job in the words a real request would use. For search-change-triage, "rankings dropped this week, triage it before we change anything" should load it, and the run should end in a decision to wait, watch or act, not in a list of rewrites.

Which SEO skills should you install first?

Start with the two free skills. skill-review helps you judge every other skill you install, including your own. search-change-triage gives you a weekly routine for search changes; the weekly triage guide walks through it.

If you plan to build an SEO or content agent, read seo-agent-design before writing code: it sets the safety contract (what the agent may touch and what a human approves). If the site's technical setup is the open question, technical-seo-2026-delta checks only what changed in 2025 and 2026 instead of re-running a classic audit. All eleven skills are listed on the pack overview, and the comparison guide sets them next to other free and paid packs.