10 Best Claude Code Skills on GitHub, Ranked by Stars
The ten most-starred Claude Code skill repositories, ranked by live GitHub stars on September 24, 2026: what each one fixes and how to install it.
Verified September 24, 2026: star counts and last-push dates were fetched from the GitHub API that morning. The previous snapshot, used for the growth column, is our catalogue's September 4, 2026 fetch. Flagship skills, licences and install commands come from each repository and from the pinned copies in our distribution.
The best Claude Code skills on GitHub, ranked by stars on September 24, 2026, are Superpowers, Matt Pocock's skills, the Karpathy guidelines, Anthropic's official set, UI/UX Pro Max, Caveman, Addy Osmani's agent skills, Taste Skill, Awesome Claude Skills and I Have ADHD. Together the ten hold 1,505,230 stars. We keep the list in a public repository and re-fetch the numbers from the API rather than typing them, because this ranking moves every week.
What are Claude Code skills?
A Claude Code skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file inside it: a name, a one-line description of when to use it, and a written procedure. Claude Code keeps the descriptions in view, loads the full skill when a task matches, and follows the procedure instead of improvising. Some skills carry scripts or reference files next to the Markdown; most are just the text.
That is the whole mechanism — no fine-tuning, no server, nothing to run. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ for every project, in .claude/skills/ inside one repository, or arrive bundled in a plugin. Because the format follows the open Agent Skills specification, the same folder usually works in Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot and OpenCode too.
Who uses them, and for what. Developers who hand real work to a coding agent and keep correcting the same behaviour — coding before the plan is agreed, generic UI, answers buried under preamble, a token bill that grows with every session. A skill turns that correction into a file you write once.
The Claude Code skills list, ranked by GitHub stars
| # | Repository | Stars (Sep 24) | Since Sep 4 | Flagship skill | What it fixes | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | obra/superpowers | 290,930 | +3.3% | brainstorming |
The agent codes before intent is settled | MIT |
| 2 | mattpocock/skills | 268,743 | +7.8% | grill-with-docs |
Plans with gaps nobody questioned | MIT |
| 3 | multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills | 214,903 | +2.3% | karpathy-guidelines |
Over-engineering and sprawling diffs | MIT (README declaration) |
| 4 | anthropics/skills | 177,877 | +2.2% | skill-creator |
Writing your own skills correctly | Per skill |
| 5 | nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill | 130,254 | +4.3% | ui-ux-pro-max |
Interfaces with no design system | MIT / Apache-2.0 |
| 6 | JuliusBrussee/caveman | 107,621 | +4.1% | caveman |
Wordy replies that cost tokens | Apache-2.0 |
| 7 | addyosmani/agent-skills | 98,783 | +7.1% | spec-driven-development |
No spec, no lifecycle | MIT |
| 8 | Leonxlnx/taste-skill | 89,726 | +6.5% | design-taste-frontend |
Generic "AI slop" frontends | MIT |
| 9 | ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills | 75,577 | +1.5% | connect-apps |
Finding skills; acting in external apps | Apache-2.0 (README) |
| 10 | ayghri/i-have-adhd | 50,816 | +87.7% | i-have-adhd |
The answer buried under preamble | MIT |
The order did not change between our two snapshots, but the gaps did. Matt Pocock's repository added 19,330 stars in twenty days, more than twice Superpowers' 9,238, and closed nearly a third of the distance to first place. I Have ADHD nearly doubled.
The same ranking as a short video: Top 10 Agent Skills for Claude Code, Cursor & Codex — One Install Away.
The ten, one by one
1. Superpowers — the process framework
Jesse Vincent's Superpowers is a full development lifecycle as 14 skills: brainstorm, plan, test-drive, debug, verify, review, ship. A session-start hook injects the entry skill into every conversation, so the rules fire without being asked. The flagship, brainstorming, blocks implementation until you approve a design. Heavy on purpose; worth it for feature work. Full breakdown: Superpowers: 14 agent skills that make Claude Code plan first.
npx skills@1 add obra/superpowers
2. Skills for Real Engineers — the toolbox
Matt Pocock's skills are the counter-position: small single-job skills from his own .agents directory, none of which claims the session. The flagship, grill-with-docs, interrogates a plan until the gaps show and leaves architecture decision records and a glossary behind. It was pushed the same morning we fetched the stars. Full breakdown: Matt Pocock's Claude Code skills.
npx skills@1 add mattpocock/skills
3. Andrej Karpathy Skills — four rules, one file
andrej-karpathy-skills is a single skill distilled from Andrej Karpathy's public observations on how LLMs go wrong when they code: think before writing, prefer simplicity, make surgical changes, drive toward a verifiable goal. It holds third place on one file, and the repository has not been pushed since April 20, 2026 — a finished idea rather than a project. It is inspired by Karpathy, not written by him.
npx skills@1 add multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills
4. Anthropic Agent Skills — the reference
anthropics/skills is Anthropic's official collection and the home of the Agent Skills specification and template. The flagship is skill-creator, which scaffolds and checks new skills; mcp-builder sits beside it. Licences differ per skill: most are Apache-2.0, while the document skills for docx, pdf, pptx and xlsx are proprietary, so read each folder's licence before redistributing.
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
5. UI/UX Pro Max — design intelligence
UI/UX Pro Max gives the agent a searchable design database: 192 reasoning rules, 79 styles and a design-system generator, queried by a local Python script with no network access. It is the most-starred design skill and ships its own CLI for about 20 agents.
npx skills@1 add nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill
6. Caveman — fewer words, same answer
Caveman makes the agent answer like a caveman while code, commands and errors stay verbatim. The README headline is about 65% fewer output tokens; JetBrains measured 8.5% on 86 real coding tasks with no detectable quality change. The repository is Apache-2.0 since Caveman 3.0.0; a separate proxy shrinks what the agent reads. Full breakdown: Caveman Claude skill: fewer tokens, same answers.
npx skills add JuliusBrussee/caveman -g
7. Agent Skills by Addy Osmani — the lifecycle, lighter
Addy Osmani's agent-skills covers the same ground as Superpowers — define, plan, build, verify, review, ship — with slash commands and agent personas, and without a hook that takes over the session. The flagship is spec-driven-development: spec before code. It added 7.1% in stars over twenty days, third-fastest in the list.
npx skills@1 add addyosmani/agent-skills
8. Taste Skill — anti-slop frontend
Taste Skill exists to stop the generic look of AI-built frontends. design-taste-frontend infers a brief, then exposes dials for variance, motion and density and maps the result onto a design system. Where UI/UX Pro Max is a database, Taste Skill is an opinion.
npx skills@1 add Leonxlnx/taste-skill --skill design-taste-frontend
9. Awesome Claude Skills — the directory
Composio's awesome-claude-skills is the largest discovery list in the ecosystem: about 180 curated skills plus 800+ app-automation skills for Composio's MCP gateway. The flagship, connect-apps, lets the agent act in external services, which also means it needs accounts and connections the others do not.
git clone https://github.com/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills
claude --plugin-dir ./awesome-claude-skills/connect-apps-plugin
10. I Have ADHD — answer first
I Have ADHD is ten output rules: lead with the next action, number the steps, cap lists at five, no preamble. It helps anyone who reads agent output quickly, not only ADHD users, and it is the fastest-growing entry in the list — from 27,069 to 50,816 stars in twenty days.
npx skills@1 add ayghri/i-have-adhd
How to add or install skills in Claude Code
Three ways to add or install skills in Claude Code, in the order we reach for them:
- The Skills CLI.
npx skills@1 add owner/repoworks for most of the ten, installs into Claude Code and 70+ other agents, and needs Node.js 22.20 or newer. Add--skill <name>to take one skill instead of the set. - A Claude Code plugin.
/plugin marketplace add owner/repo, then/plugin install. Plugins can add hooks and commands as well as skills. - A plain copy. Drop the skill folder into
~/.claude/skills/or.claude/skills/. No tooling, and easy to read before you trust it.
Pick one route per repository. Installing the same collection as a plugin and through the CLI leaves duplicate skills that fire twice; Matt Pocock's README warns about exactly this.
Read a skill before installing it. A skill is instructions your agent will follow with your permissions, and a few of these ship scripts or reach external services.
Which ones to install
Pick by what goes wrong in your work, not by the star count:
| If your agent… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Starts coding before you agreed on the approach | Superpowers, or Addy Osmani's skills for lighter |
| Builds on a plan nobody questioned | Matt Pocock's grill-with-docs |
| Writes three files where one line would do | Karpathy guidelines |
| Ships interfaces that all look the same | Taste Skill, then UI/UX Pro Max |
| Buries the answer under preamble | I Have ADHD |
| Costs more than it should in replies | Caveman |
| Needs to act in Slack, GitHub or Gmail | Awesome Claude Skills (connect-apps) |
| Keeps getting the same correction from you | Anthropic's skill-creator — write your own |
They combine. A common stack is Superpowers for process and Caveman for reply length side by side, with Matt Pocock's skills and the design skills pulled in when a task needs them. Collisions are the thing to watch: two of these repositories both ship a skill called test-driven-development, which is why our distribution installs them as obra-test-driven-development and addyosmani-test-driven-development.
The skill underneath all ten is the same — getting reliable work out of a system that answers instantly and confidently whether or not it understood you. Our piece on Claude Code vs Codex and agent literacy covers those habits.
FAQ
What is the most popular Claude Code skill?
Superpowers by Jesse Vincent is the most-starred Claude Code skill repository, with 290,930 GitHub stars on September 24, 2026. Its entry skill, brainstorming, is the most visible single skill in it.
Are Claude Code skills free? All ten repositories here are free to use. Most are MIT or Apache-2.0; Anthropic's document skills are proprietary, so check the licence before redistributing a skill, not before using it.
Do Claude Code skills work in Codex or Cursor? Mostly, yes. Skills follow the open Agent Skills format, and the Skills CLI installs them into Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, OpenCode and more. Hooks and plugin extras are harness-specific, so a plugin's automatic behaviour may not carry over.
How many skills should I install? Fewer than you think. Every installed skill adds its description to the agent's context, and overlapping skills compete for the same task. Start with the one that fixes your most frequent correction, and add the next when you notice the next one.
Skills, subagents, plugins or MCP — what is the difference? A skill is instructions the agent follows. A subagent is a separate agent with its own context that the main one delegates to. A plugin is a package that can bundle skills, hooks, commands and subagents. An MCP server gives the agent new tools to call. Many of the repositories above ship several of these together.
Where can I find these Claude Code skills on GitHub? Each entry in the ranking links to its GitHub repository. The whole list, with install commands and licence records, lives in github.com/aiescu/agent-skills, which also carries pinned copies of each collection's most-installed skills.
How often does this ranking change? The order held between September 4 and September 24, 2026, but the gaps moved: Matt Pocock's skills gained 19,330 stars and I Have ADHD 23,747 in those twenty days. We re-fetch the numbers from the GitHub API rather than editing them by hand.
The list, kept current
These ten are the upstream catalogue of github.com/aiescu/agent-skills, which ranks them by stars fetched from the GitHub API and carries pinned, licence-checked copies of up to five of each collection's most-installed skills — 42 packages in total — so you can take one skill without taking the whole set. The same list is on the web at aiescu.com/agent-skills, and the video version is on YouTube:
npx skills@1 add aiescu/agent-skills --list
The same repository records the three products we build with those skills: GeekBye, the real-time interview assistant; Keebye, push-to-talk dictation for people who drive coding agents; and Pavleur, an AI meeting copilot for Mac — each with the skills that did the work.
