Docs — Skills Telemetry

Documentation

Learn how to discover, install, and use skills with your AI agents — and how to run your own telemetry server.

What are skills?

Skills are reusable capabilities for AI agents. They provide procedural knowledge that helps agents accomplish specific tasks more effectively. Think of them as plugins or extensions that enhance what your AI agent can do.

Getting started

Install a skill using the skills CLI:

npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills

This downloads the skill and configures it for use with your AI agent.

How skills are ranked

The leaderboard ranks skills based on anonymous telemetry data collected from the skills CLI. When users install skills, aggregated usage data helps surface the most popular and useful skills in the ecosystem.

Add an install badge

[![skills.sh](https://skills.kwal-it.nl/b/owner/repo)](https://skills.kwal-it.nl/owner/repo)

CLI Reference

The skills CLI is the primary way to install and manage skills. It can be run directly with npx — no installation required:

npx skills add <owner/repo>

Commands

Command	Description
`skills add <pkg>`	Install skills from a git repo, URL, or local path
`skills list`	List all installed skills
`skills update`	Update skills to their latest versions
`skills find <query>`	Search for skills interactively
`skills init [name]`	Create a new SKILL.md template
`skills use <pkg>@<skill>`	Use a skill without installing it

Telemetry

By default, the CLI collects anonymous telemetry data to help rank skills. To opt out, set DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 in your environment.

To point the CLI at this self-hosted server:

SKILLS_TELEMETRY_URL=http://your-server: npx skills add owner/repo

Server Configuration

Telemetry events are stored as JSON in a Vercel Blob store. Set these in your .env.local file or deployment environment:

Variable	Description
`BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN`	Vercel Blob token (required)
`GITHUB_TOKEN`	GitHub token — raises API rate limits
`GITLAB_HOST`	Self-hosted GitLab base URL for SKILL.md fetching
`GITLAB_TOKEN`	GitLab personal access token (private repos)
`PORT`	HTTP port (default 3000)

Telemetry endpoint

GET /t — fire-and-forget query params. Common: v, ci, agent, event. Always returns 204; failures are ignored.

event	Extra params
`install`	source, skills, agents, optional global, skillFiles, installUrl, metadata, sourceType, repoUrl
`remove`	skills, agents, optional source, global, sourceType
`update`	skillCount, successCount, failCount, optional scope
`find`	query, resultCount, optional interactive
`experimental_sync`	skillCount, successCount, agents

GET /t?v=1.5.26&event=install&source=vercel-labs/skills&skills=find-skills&agents=cursor

Quick Start

Deploy to Vercel (recommended)

vercel env add BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN
vercel deploy

Run with Docker

cp .env.example .env.local  # add BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN
docker compose up -d

Run locally

cp .env.example .env.local
pnpm install && pnpm dev

The server listens on http://localhost:.