OpenSkills is a universal skills loader for AI coding agents that brings Anthropic's skills system to every AI coding agent through a single CLI tool.
The tool solves the problem of skills being locked into Claude Code by generating the exact same available_skills XML format that Claude Code uses, making it readable by any agent that can parse AGENTS.md files. It works by installing SKILL.md files to a project or global location and writing them into an AGENTS.md file in the format that multiple agents understand. Skills can be loaded on demand to keep agent context clean, and the tool supports installation from the Anthropic marketplace, GitHub repositories, local paths, and private git repos.
Developers should choose OpenSkills if they use multiple AI coding agents and want to share a single skills library across them without duplicating effort. It suits projects that need skills to be versioned alongside code or installed from private sources. The tool maintains exact compatibility with Claude Code's skill format and folder structure, so skills written for Claude Code work immediately with other agents like Cursor, Windsurf, Aider, and Codex. Installation defaults to project-local storage in .claude/skills or .agent/skills, with options for global installation or universal mode to avoid conflicts when using Claude Code alongside other agents.
The project shows active development with recent commits addressing core functionality. Work spans multiple areas including the core skill-loading mechanism, command-line interface refinement, and documentation of the SKILL.md authoring format. The maintainer has implemented features for updating skills from git sources and managing skill sources across different installation locations.
