By the numbers
Agent skills by the numbers
Is the agent skills ecosystem growing, or are the download counts growing? On September 3, 2026 the npm registry reported 38,365,913 downloads of the `skills` CLI over the previous month, and GitHub code search returned about 37,248 public READMEs that print `npx skills` as an install step. That is roughly 1,030 downloads a month for every README that prints it.
Three figures follow: how many public READMEs print the CLI, how many public repositories file themselves under a skills topic, and what the download curve looks like month by month across 2026.
- Publisher
- Skills Board
- Published
- Snapshot
In short
On September 3, 2026, GitHub carried 20,783 public repositories tagged `agent-skills`, 7,817 tagged `claude-skills`, and 1,661 tagged `claude-code-skills`. About 37,248 public READMEs print `npx skills`, while npm served 38,365,913 downloads of that package in the month ending August 29, 2026, a ratio of roughly 1,030 downloads for every matching README.
The 2026 download curve runs from 240,953 in January 2026 to 38,867,068 in June 2026, then holds between 39,859,796 and 44,425,540 through the summer. The step from May 2026 to June 2026 is about 8.2 times in a single month, which is the shape automated traffic tends to make. Public download data does not say which.
The two GitHub endpoints report at different precisions, and the tables label which is which. Repository search returns an exact `total_count`. Code search rounds `total_count` into buckets of roughly four significant figures, so 37,248 marks a range rather than an exact register.
01 / Declarations
How many READMEs print the command
The install command for the `skills` CLI, published on npm by Vercel Labs from the vercel-labs/skills repository, is `npx skills`. A public README that prints that command was written by an author who expects a human to run it, which makes README matches the closest public proxy for stated use. GitHub code search counts files rather than repositories, so a repository holding several matching READMEs is counted once for each of them, and the number of distinct projects is lower than or equal to the figure below.
| Measure | Value | Precision | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| READMEs printing the command | About 37,248 | Bucketed by GitHub code search | September 3, 2026 |
| npm downloads, last month | 38,365,913 | Exact for the window npm reports, July 31, 2026 to August 29, 2026 | September 3, 2026 |
| Downloads per matching README | About 1,030 | Derived from the two rows above | September 3, 2026 |
The ratio is where the two sides pull apart. One README that prints the command corresponds to roughly a thousand package downloads a month, which is more traffic than a team of people running an installer would produce. A registry counts machines and a README records an intention, so the numerator and the denominator are drawn from different populations by construction.
GitHub code search rounds its total into buckets, so about 37,248 marks a range rather than an exact register. The npm figure covers the window npm chose, July 31, 2026 to August 29, 2026, which is why it differs slightly from any calendar month in the series further down.
Code search reads public repositories that GitHub has indexed. Private repositories, packages documented on a website instead of a README, and monorepo subdirectories without a README of their own all sit outside the count.
Folding the files back into repositories is not something the endpoint allows: code search stops paginating at a thousand results, so the matches behind a total of about 37,248 cannot be listed and deduplicated.
If the command itself is new to you, the Agent Skills standard page covers what a skill is and which agents load one.
02 / Repositories
How many repositories are tagged as skills
A GitHub topic is applied by the repository owner, so a topic count records how many authors decided their work belongs to the category. Repository search returns an exact total, so this is the count on the page with no rounding in it.
| Topic | Public repositories | Change | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| agent-skills | 20,783 | First snapshot, no comparison yet | September 3, 2026 |
| claude-skills | 7,817 | First snapshot, no comparison yet | September 3, 2026 |
| claude-code-skills | 1,661 | First snapshot, no comparison yet | September 3, 2026 |
The three topics overlap. A repository can carry `agent-skills` and `claude-skills` at the same time, so the totals describe three labels rather than three populations, and adding them together produces a number that means nothing.
What sits under a topic is mixed: individual skills, collections of skills, tooling that reads a SKILL.md, and repositories that added the topic to be found. The count measures how many people file work under the category, and it moves at the speed a person edits a repository.
For the repositories worth opening rather than counting, our register of Claude skills reads each one from its own SKILL.md.
03 / Downloads
Downloads month by month
The 2026 download curve for the `skills` package, aggregated by calendar month from the npm daily range endpoint between January 1, 2026 and September 3, 2026.
| Month | Downloads | Change on the month before |
|---|---|---|
| January 2026 | 240,953 | First month in the range |
| February 2026 | 988,785 | 4.1 times the month before |
| March 2026 | 2,635,935 | 2.7 times the month before |
| April 2026 | 3,026,631 | 1.1 times the month before |
| May 2026 | 4,760,931 | 1.6 times the month before |
| June 2026 | 38,867,068 | 8.2 times the month before |
| July 2026 | 44,425,540 | 1.1 times the month before |
| August 2026 | 39,859,796 | 0.9 times the month before |
| September 2026 | 3,596,150 | Partial month, through September 3, 2026 |
June 2026 is where the curve changes shape. Downloads went from 4,760,931 to 38,867,068 inside one month and then held in that band. A step of that size that stays at its new level is what automated traffic looks like: a package pulled into a widely copied template, a continuous integration job that installs on every run, or a registry mirror. Public download data carries no attribution, so the June 2026 step is recorded here as an open question.
The months before it behave differently. January 2026 through May 2026 runs from 240,953 to 4,760,931, roughly doubling every month or two, at a scale a spreading command line tool can plausibly reach.
The last row covers a few days of a month that was still running when the snapshot was taken, which is why it sits far below the rows above it.
Download counts say little about which skills a team ends up using, and our guide to choosing a first team skill works through that decision.
04 / Method
How these numbers are collected
Everything above comes from three public endpoints, read in one pass by `scripts/ecosystem-stats/collect.mjs` in our repository.
- Repository counts: `GET /search/repositories?q=topic:<topic>&per_page=1` on the GitHub API, once per topic. The `total_count` field on repository search is exact.
- README counts: `GET /search/code?q="npx skills" filename:README.md` on the same API. Code search counts matching files rather than repositories, and it quantizes `total_count` into buckets of roughly four significant figures, so that number is approximate and the table says so beside it.
- Refusal: if either GitHub search answers with `incomplete_results: true`, its `total_count` is partial, and the collector exits with an error instead of writing a snapshot.
- Downloads: `api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-month/skills` for the ratio, and `api.npmjs.org/downloads/range/2026-01-01:<today>/skills` aggregated by calendar month for the series.
- Snapshot: read on September 3, 2026 at 19:26 UTC.
- Schedule: one snapshot a month. The change column compares each month with the one before.
05 / Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Do 38,365,913 downloads a month mean that many people use agent skills?
- They do not. npm counts every fetch of the package, so one continuous integration pipeline can produce thousands of downloads on its own. The figure tracks machines rather than people. The closer public proxy is the count of about 37,248 public README files that print the command, and because code search counts files, fewer projects sit behind it.
- How many public repositories are tagged as agent skills?
- On September 3, 2026, GitHub returned 20,783 public repositories carrying the `agent-skills` topic, 7,817 carrying `claude-skills`, and 1,661 carrying `claude-code-skills`. Owners apply topics themselves and one repository can carry several of them, so the three totals overlap and adding them together gives a number without a meaning.
- Why did downloads jump 8.2 times in June 2026?
- Downloads moved from 4,760,931 in May 2026 to 38,867,068 in June 2026 and stayed near that level afterwards. A step that large inside a single month usually comes from automation, such as a package pulled into a widely copied template or a mirror on a schedule. Public data carries no attribution, so the cause stays an open question.
Sources
- GitHub repository search API
Topic counts. `total_count` on this endpoint is exact.
- GitHub code search API
README counts. `total_count` on this endpoint is quantized into buckets.
- npm downloads, last month, package skills
The single month figure used for the ratio, over the window npm reports.
- npm downloads, daily range, package skills
Daily counts, aggregated here by calendar month for the 2026 series.
- The collector script in our repository
Reads the endpoints above and writes one JSON snapshot per month.
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