You use Claude Code to write code, Cursor for development, Codex CLI to debug issues. They’re all powerful — but they don’t know what documents are on your computer.
Linkly AI Skills solves this. It’s a skill pack that teaches your AI assistant how to search and read your local documents.
What Are Agent Skills
Agent Skills is an open standard for extending AI agents with new capabilities. Originally developed and open-sourced by Anthropic.
The core concept is simple: a Skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file that tells the AI in natural language “what you can do and how to do it.”
When an AI starts up, it only loads each Skill’s name and description (~100 tokens), loading the full instructions only when the task is relevant. This progressive disclosure mechanism lets agents carry dozens of Skills without blowing up the context window.
Currently 30+ AI platforms support this standard, including Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and more.
What Linkly AI Skills Does
Once installed, your AI assistant gains three capabilities:
- search — Search locally indexed documents
- outline — View a document’s structural outline
- read — Read specific sections of a document
This is the three-step progressive workflow from Outlines Index.
For example, you tell Claude Code: “Find the database selection section from my architecture proposal.”
Claude Code will:
- Call
linkly search "database selection architecture"to find relevant documents - Use
linkly outlineto view the document structure and locate the “Database Selection” section - Use
linkly readto precisely read that section’s content - Answer your question based on what it read
You just ask in natural language — no commands to remember.
Installation
The simplest way, one command:
npx skills add LinklyAI/linkly-ai-skills
This auto-detects which AI tools you have installed and puts the Skill in the right place.
You can also install for a specific platform:
# Claude Code
npx skills add LinklyAI/linkly-ai-skills -a claude-code
# Codex CLI
npx skills add LinklyAI/linkly-ai-skills -a codex
# Global install (all supported AI tools)
npx skills add LinklyAI/linkly-ai-skills -g
How It Works
Skills automatically detects your environment and chooses the best communication method:
- CLI first: Checks if the
linklycommand is available — if so, uses it to run searches - MCP fallback: If MCP tools (search/outline/read) are already configured, calls them directly
- Auto-install: Neither available? Guides you through CLI installation
Both methods are completely transparent to the user — just ask in natural language.
Security by Design
- Read-only: Skills only provides search and read capabilities — it won’t modify your files
- Data stays local: All search and read operations happen on your computer
- Content isolation: Document content is read as data, not executed as instructions — preventing prompt injection
Prerequisites
- Install and run Linkly AI Desktop
- Select your document directories in the desktop app and wait for indexing to complete
Once indexing is done, your AI assistant can “see” your documents.
Built by the Linkly AI team. Skills is open source on GitHub.
