claude-skills MCP — Use Cases, Install & Live Demo

Why use it

Key features

235+ skills organized in 9 clearly delineated domains
POWERFUL Tier for advanced scenarios (RAG, DB design, incident response)
Cross-platform: 12 coding agents supported, not just Claude Code
Each skill ships SKILL.md + optional Python CLI helpers + references
Context-aware activation — e.g. asking about NestJS JWT auto-loads the right reference

Live Demo

What it looks like in practice

claude-skill.replay ▶ ready

0/0

Install

Pick your client

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json · Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claude-skill": {
      "command": "git",
      "args": [
        "clone",
        "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
        "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
      ],
      "_inferred": true
    }
  }
}

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config. Restart after saving.

~/.cursor/mcp.json · .cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claude-skill": {
      "command": "git",
      "args": [
        "clone",
        "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
        "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
      ],
      "_inferred": true
    }
  }
}

Cursor uses the same mcpServers schema as Claude Desktop. Project config wins over global.

VS Code → Cline → MCP Servers → Edit

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claude-skill": {
      "command": "git",
      "args": [
        "clone",
        "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
        "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
      ],
      "_inferred": true
    }
  }
}

Click the MCP Servers icon in the Cline sidebar, then "Edit Configuration".

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claude-skill": {
      "command": "git",
      "args": [
        "clone",
        "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
        "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
      ],
      "_inferred": true
    }
  }
}

Same shape as Claude Desktop. Restart Windsurf to pick up changes.

~/.continue/config.json

{
  "mcpServers": [
    {
      "name": "claude-skill",
      "command": "git",
      "args": [
        "clone",
        "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
        "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Continue uses an array of server objects rather than a map.

~/.config/zed/settings.json

{
  "context_servers": {
    "claude-skill": {
      "command": {
        "path": "git",
        "args": [
          "clone",
          "https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills",
          "~/.claude/skills/claude-skills"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Add to context_servers. Zed hot-reloads on save.

claude mcp add claude-skill -- git clone https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills ~/.claude/skills/claude-skills

One-liner. Verify with claude mcp list. Remove with claude mcp remove.

Use Cases

Real-world ways to use claude-skills

Get an architecture review before you commit to a stack

👤 Tech leads starting a new service ⏱ ~30 min intermediate

When to use: You're about to pick a framework and database for a new product and want a sanity check.

Flow

Describe the service

Use the engineering skills. We need a real-time collab API — 10k concurrent users, document sync, presence. Compare Node+WebSocket vs Elixir+Phoenix vs Go+gRPC.✓ Copied

→ Comparison grounded in real tradeoffs from the respective skills
Probe risks

For the choice you'd recommend, what fails at 100k users?✓ Copied

→ Concrete scaling cliffs, not generic platitudes

Outcome: A decision doc with tradeoffs and scaling risks identified.

Pitfalls

Skill over-recommends the framework it has the deepest skill for — Ask it to explicitly state why NOT each option

Run an incident response playbook for a production outage

👤 On-call engineers during a live incident ⏱ ~15 min advanced

When to use: Production is on fire and you need structured triage without panicking.

Flow

Open the incident

Use the incident-response skill. Symptoms: API 500s spiking in US-east, started 10 min ago.✓ Copied

→ Claude walks through structured diagnosis — triage tree, log queries, mitigation options
Follow-up postmortem

Now draft the postmortem template using what we learned.✓ Copied

→ Filled-in template with blameless framing

Outcome: Faster time-to-mitigate and a credible postmortem.

Pitfalls

Skill suggests generic mitigations without knowing your stack — Tell it your stack upfront — 'we're on AWS ECS + RDS Postgres'

Combine with: aws · sentry

Use the CTO skill to pressure-test a board deck

👤 Founders and CTOs prepping for fundraising ⏱ ~45 min advanced

When to use: You have the tech section of a deck and want senior-CTO red team feedback.

Flow

Share the slides

Use the CTO advisory skill. Here's our tech architecture slide — what would a skeptical board member ask?✓ Copied

→ Specific, pointed questions tied to slide content
Prep answers

For each question, draft a crisp answer with data we'd need to back it up.✓ Copied

→ Prep notes you can actually rehearse

Outcome: A rehearsed Q&A for the tech portion of your board meeting.

Pitfalls

Questions feel generic — Feed in your actual architecture docs, not just the deck summary

Combinations

Pair with other MCPs for X10 leverage

claude-skill + github

Engineering skills suggest the change; GitHub MCP opens the PR

Use the backend skill to design the refactor, then open a PR in our repo with the plan as the description.✓ Copied

claude-skill + filesystem

Skills produce docs; filesystem stores them in the repo

Save the architecture review output to docs/architecture/ and create a README index.✓ Copied

Tools

What this MCP exposes

Tool	Inputs	When to call
Engineering skills	technical question or design brief	Backend, frontend, DevOps, security work
Marketing skills	campaign or content brief	Content, SEO, CRO, growth work
C-Level advisory skills	strategic question	Board, fundraising, executive hiring
POWERFUL Tier skills	complex scenario (RAG, DB, incident)	When a basic skill isn't enough
Regulatory/quality skills	compliance question	Regulated industries

Cost & Limits

What this costs to run

API quota: None
Tokens per call: Varies wildly by skill; big skills load 5-15k tokens of references
Monetary: Free — skills are local
Tip: The library is too big to let Claude browse freely. Name the skill or domain in the prompt.

Security

Permissions, secrets, blast radius

Credential storage: No credentials — skill is prompts

Data egress: None from the skill itself

C-level and regulatory skills still need human review — don't ship compliance decisions on skill output alone.

Troubleshooting

Common errors and fixes

Claude picks the wrong skill for a task

Reference by domain: 'use the marketing > SEO skill'. With 235+ skills, auto-routing is fuzzy.

SKILL.md loads are too large

Pin to one skill at a time; don't try to load multiple domains in one prompt.

Python CLI helpers not found

Some skills require optional Python utils — check the skill's setup section.

Verify: ls ~/.claude/skills/claude-skills/<skill>/scripts/

Alternatives

claude-skills vs others

Alternative	When to use it instead	Tradeoff
claude-skill-2 (Jeffallan)	You only want full-stack dev (66 skills), not marketing/compliance	Narrower, less overwhelming
awesome-claude-skill	You want to browse skills, not install a mega-bundle	Directory vs installable pack
Single-purpose skills (terraform, playwright, tutor)	You have one specific problem	Sharper focus

More

Resources

📖 Read the official README on GitHub

🐙 Browse open issues

🔍 Browse all 400+ MCP servers and Skills