Ask Claude Code to write a BigQuery query and it will guess the SQL dialect. Ask it to build a GKE manifest and it will guess the fields. Ask it to set up an IAM policy and it will guess the roles. The guesses are usually close, and close is exactly what breaks a deploy at 2 a.m. Google publishes an official fix for this: a collection of agent skills that hands your coding agent the same procedures Google documents for its own products. This guide covers how to install Google agent skills in Claude Code, what the collection contains, and where it helps most.

What Google Skills is

Google Skills is the official agent-skills collection from Google for Google products and technologies, including Google Cloud. The repository at github.com/google/skills is public under the Apache License 2.0. When checked on 2026-11-07 it had 23,115 stars and 1,941 forks, 551 commits, and a first commit history going back to its creation on 2026-03-31.

It is a collection, not a single skill. The README's Available Skills section lists 187 skills, grouped by area: 45 for infrastructure, mostly GKE and Compute Engine; 29 for AI and machine learning, including Vertex AI Agent Platform, Genkit, and Gemini API skills; 23 for security and identity, including IAM, Cloud Armor, and Google SecOps; 19 for databases and analytics, including BigQuery, AlloyDB, Spanner, and Cloud SQL; 19 for management tools, including Cloud Monitoring and cost analysis; 14 for advertising, including the Google Ads API and the Mobile Ads SDK; 12 multi-product solution skills, including a Google Cloud solution-architecture workflow and a RAG setup for enterprise search; and smaller groups for getting started with Google Cloud, developer tools, application development, the Well-Architected Framework, web and app hosting, and analytics.

Two entries in the collection are worth knowing by name. The Google Skill Finder skill exists to answer one question: which of the other 186 skills fits the task in front of you. The onboarding skill for Google Cloud covers authenticating and authorizing to Google Cloud through IAM, which is the step most people skip and then debug for an hour.

The collection does not stop at its own repository. The README points to seven further Google skills repositories: Advanced Google Cloud Storage Skills, Agent Development Kit (ADK) Skills, Android Skills, Dart Skills, Firestore Skills, Flutter Skills, and Google Maps Platform Skills. The repository also ships an index.json and a skills/ directory, so the contents are machine-readable as well as human-readable.

Install and use

The install command below was run once and reached the installer's interactive selection prompt; the plugin commands are quoted verbatim from the README and were not executed (unverified).

Install the collection with the skills CLI:

npx skills add google/skills

The installer asks three questions: which skills to install (specific ones or all of them), which target agents to configure, and whether the scope is one project or global. If npx is not available, the README says to install Node.js, which includes npm and npx.

To update skills you already installed, run:

npx skills update

That command also offers to remove skills that have become obsolete.

There is a second route, for plugin users. The README's plugins table gives one install path per harness. For Claude Code:

claude plugin marketplace add google/skills

then claude plugin install <plugin>@google-plugins, substituting the plugin name for <plugin>. For Codex, the marketplace command is codex plugin marketplace add google/skills, and the plugin is then installed from the /plugins browser. For the Antigravity CLI, the command is agy plugin install https://github.com/google/skills/<plugin-path>, again substituting the real plugin path.

Once installed, there is no slash command to memorize. The skills are loaded by the agent when the task matches them, so you describe the work in plain words. Ask for help writing a BigQuery query against a real table, and the BigQuery skills supply the dialect and the workflow. Ask for a GKE manifest, and the GKE skills supply the fields and the gotchas. If you are not sure which skill applies, ask the agent to use Google Skill Finder first: it exists to route the question to the right skill before the work starts.

Two practical notes. First, installing all 187 skills is the default-friendly choice, but the installer lets you pick specific ones, and a smaller install means a smaller context for the agent on every task. Second, these skills are guidance text, not code that runs: the agent still executes gcloud and writes the files itself, so read the commands it proposes before they touch a production project.

Where it fits, and where it does not

Google Skills fits best when the work is Google Cloud work and the risk is a wrong detail: BigQuery SQL, GKE manifests and troubleshooting, Cloud Run configuration, Cloud Storage setup, IAM policies and troubleshooting, cost analysis, and security reviews against Google's own checklists. It also fits when you are new to a Google product and want the agent to follow the documented path instead of improvising one: the onboarding, basics, and getting-started skills exist for exactly that.

It does not fit everything. The collection is heavily weighted toward Google Cloud infrastructure; there is little here for general coding, design, or non-Google stacks. A skill tells the agent the procedure, but it does not grant access: you still need your own Google Cloud credentials and permissions, and the IAM onboarding skill is the place to start if authentication fails. And the collection is large enough that its own Skill Finder skill is a real feature, not a gimmick: if you install everything and never route through it, the agent can load a near-miss skill and follow the wrong procedure confidently.

One more boundary, stated plainly because it matters: the README names Claude Code, Codex, and the Antigravity CLI in its plugins table, and the skills CLI asks which agents to configure at install time. Nothing in the README promises a specific experience in any other harness, so do not assume one.

FAQ

How do I install Google agent skills in Claude Code? Run npx skills add google/skills, then select the skills you want, choose Claude Code as the target agent, and pick a project or global scope. If npx is not available, install Node.js first. Alternatively, install the plugin route with claude plugin marketplace add google/skills followed by claude plugin install <plugin>@google-plugins. The npx command was run once and reached the installer's interactive selection prompt; the plugin commands are quoted from the README and were not executed here.

Does Google Skills work with Codex? Yes. The README's plugins table gives a Codex route: codex plugin marketplace add google/skills, then install the plugin from the /plugins browser. The skills CLI route also asks which agents to configure, so Codex can be selected there too.

How many skills are in google/skills? The README's Available Skills section lists 187 skills, counted from the repository page on 2026-11-07. The largest groups are infrastructure with 45, AI and machine learning with 29, and security and identity with 23. Seven further Google skills repositories are linked separately and are not part of that count.

Is Google Skills free? Yes. The repository is published under the Apache License 2.0, which permits copying, modifying, and distributing the skills. The skills themselves cost nothing; the Google Cloud resources you use through them are billed by Google Cloud as usual.

How do I update Google skills after installing them? Run npx skills update. The command updates previously installed skills to their latest versions and offers to remove skills that have become obsolete.

What is Google Skill Finder? It is a skill inside the collection whose job is to find the right skill for the task. If you are unsure which of the 187 skills applies, ask the agent to use Google Skill Finder first, so the work starts from the correct procedure instead of a near miss.

See the skill's directory entry for install, platforms, and quick start: Google Skills on aiskills.one.