Agent Skills for Cursor

Cursor already knows your codebase. Skills tell it what to produce — a landing page with a specific layout system, a deck with an editorial grid, a set of social cards. The difference between a good Cursor session and a great one is usually whether the taste was written down.

The four folders Cursor reads

ScopePath
Project.cursor/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
Project (shared standard).agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
User~/.cursor/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
User (shared standard)~/.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md

.agents/skills is the cross-agent location: the same folder works in Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot and others. If you use more than one agent, install there once instead of copying files four times.

Install and verify

  1. Copy the skill into .agents/skills/<name>/.
  2. Confirm SKILL.md is directly inside that folder.
  3. Reload the Cursor window.
  4. Ask for the deliverable: "Build a pricing page in this style."

Best first installs for Cursor

SkillWhat it producesInstalls
Cadence Marketing LandingA full marketing page299
Dot Avatar MakerAn interactive avatar builder476
Beacon SaaS LandingA SaaS landing page191
Cobalt Serif Freelancer SiteA portfolio site58
Slate Admin ConsoleAn admin dashboard287
Apple Style OG ImageClean social previews59

Why .agents/skills is the safer default

If you switch agents next quarter — and most teams do — project-scoped .cursor/skills leaves your library behind. .agents/skills is read by Cursor, Gemini CLI and Copilot, so the same investment keeps working. Keep .cursor/skills only for Cursor-specific behaviour.

FAQ

Do project skills get committed? Yes, if the folder isn't gitignored. That's usually what you want for team taste, and usually not what you want for personal experiments.

Can I use a Claude Code skill in Cursor? If it's plain SKILL.md plus assets, yes — copy it into .agents/skills/.

What if a skill overrides my rules? Rules are always-on context; skills are on-demand. Keep style rules in rules, workflows in skills.