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Apify Agent Skills

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Agent Skills are instructions your agent loads on demand when it needs Apify-specific procedural knowledge. Each skill describes a multi-step workflow that Apify has already validated, so the agent follows a known-good sequence instead of improvising one.

Skills layer on top of a connection you already have, whether that's a plugin or the MCP server on its own. The For AI agents overview shows how they relate to the other pieces.

Install

The simplest route is a plugin, which ships the skills already installed. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, OpenCode, Grok Build, Kimi Code, Qoder, and DeepSeek Harness get them this way.

To install the skills on their own, for an agent without a plugin or alongside a hand-configured MCP server, use the skills CLI:

npx skills add apify/agent-skills

The skills work in Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, and Gemini CLI. Run the command again to pick up new skill versions.

In Claude Code, you can also add the skills marketplace and install skills one at a time:

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/apify/agent-skills
/plugin install apify-ultimate-scraper@apify-agent-skills

Standalone skills call Apify through the Apify CLI, so install it with npm install -g apify-cli and run apify login. In headless environments such as CI, set the APIFY_TOKEN environment variable instead. The CLI and the apify-ultimate-scraper skill need Node.js version 20.6 or later.

Agents that discover skills on their own can read the index at apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json. It lists the standalone skills in the Agent Skills discovery format, with a link and a content digest for each SKILL.md.

Available skills

SkillWhat it doesWhere you get it
apify-ultimate-scraperRoutes a scraping request to the right Actor and drives multi-step extraction and lead-generation workflows.Plugins and skills CLI
apify-actor-developmentCovers the full Actor lifecycle: template selection, development, local testing, output schemas, and deployment with apify push.Plugins and skills CLI
apify-actorizationConverts an existing JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, or CLI project into an Apify Actor.Plugins and skills CLI
apify-generate-output-schemaGenerates dataset and key-value store schemas for an existing Actor.Plugins
apify-sdk-integrationIntegrates Actor execution into an application using the apify-client package.Plugins
apify-integration-developmentDesigns and builds an official Apify integration for another product, such as a workflow-automation app, an agent plugin, or an AI framework package.Skills CLI

Plugins ship apify-generate-output-schema and apify-sdk-integration. In the skills CLI, apify-actor-development now generates output schemas itself, and apify-integration-development takes the place of the SDK integration skill.

For the canonical list and each skill's contents, see the Apify skills registry.

Write a prompt that triggers a skill

A skill fires when your request matches its purpose, so describe the outcome you want and let the agent pick the skill:

To run apify-ultimate-scraper:

Find 10 highly rated coffee shops in Seattle with name, address, rating, phone, and website.

To run apify-actor-development:

Create an Apify Actor that accepts a startUrl and maxPages input, crawls the site, and stores each page title and URL.

To run apify-sdk-integration:

Add Apify to this project. The Node.js API route should run an Actor and return dataset items as JSON.

With a plugin installed, the apify routing agent handles the match on agents that bundle it.

Skills can edit your files

The Actor development, actorization, and integration skills write to your project. Review their changes before you commit or deploy.