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Overview

Skills are a standardized format for packaging AI agent capabilities as structured Markdown files (SKILL.md). Each skill describes a capability — its purpose, usage triggers, and the steps the agent should follow to execute it. This gives AI agents a consistent, discoverable, interoperable way to understand and invoke external tools without manual configuration. You can learn more about the open standard at agentskills.io. CodeRabbit Skills are open-source, agent-installable capabilities built on this standard — browse and contribute at github.com/coderabbitai/skills. With these skills, any compatible agent can trigger a full review without explanations on how to run specific console commands.
Skills vs. manual CLI integrationSkills are a standardized, installable capability — a structured way for agents to discover and invoke tools. Manual CLI integration (covered in the agent integration guides) means directly prompting your agent to run coderabbit CLI commands. The two approaches are complementary: skills provide a consistent, zero-configuration trigger mechanism on top of the same underlying CLI.
Skills complement the existing agent integrations documented in the CLI section. You can use skills alongside manual CLI workflows or as a replacement when you want a more natural, language-driven interface.

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Prerequisites

Before installing skills, make sure the CodeRabbit CLI is installed and authenticated. Install and authenticate the CodeRabbit CLI:
Authenticate
For full CLI setup instructions, see the CLI overview.

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Supported agents

The CodeRabbit CLI detects and installs user-level skills for Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and GitHub Copilot. The package-runner alternative supports 35+ compatible agents; see the coderabbitai/skills repository for the complete list.
If you prefer to configure agent integrations manually, see the dedicated guides for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Gemini CLI.

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Install or update skills

Use the first-party CodeRabbit CLI command for supported agents:
The command:
  1. Downloads the latest published coderabbitai/skills release and verifies its release manifest and checksums.
  2. Detects supported coding agents already installed on your machine.
  3. Shows every planned install or update, including the exact destination paths and anything it will leave unchanged.
  4. Asks once for confirmation, defaulting to No, before writing any skill files.
Run coderabbit skills in an interactive terminal. It has no flags or subcommands that bypass confirmation, and a non-interactive invocation does not write files.

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Updates and existing installations

The CLI safely reconciles existing CodeRabbit skills:
  • Missing and outdated, unchanged CLI-managed skills are offered for installation or update.
  • Locally modified CLI-managed copies, package-runner installations, and plugin-managed skills are left unchanged.
  • Project-level and generic, unverifiable, ambiguous, duplicate, or cross-owner installations are also left unchanged.
If a conflict is left unchanged, resolve it with the owning installer and run coderabbit skills again.

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Package-runner alternative

Use a package runner when you need project-scoped installation, agent-specific selection, or an agent outside the five supported directly by the CodeRabbit CLI:

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Package-runner options

Customize how skills are installed with these flags:
The package runner installs SKILL.md files into ~/.agents/skills or the selected agent’s designated skills directory. Its prompts, flags, and ownership remain separate from coderabbit skills.

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Available skills

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CodeRabbit review

The CodeRabbit review skill triggers a full CodeRabbit analysis of your current changes directly from an explicit natural-language request.

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Triggering the skill

Activate the skill using natural language inside your AI agent:
  • “Run a CodeRabbit review”
  • “Review my changes with CodeRabbit”
  • “Use CodeRabbit to check this branch”
  • “Ask CodeRabbit to review my PR”
The agent reads the installed SKILL.md file and automatically invokes the CodeRabbit CLI.

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How it works

When triggered, the agent will:
  1. Check that the CodeRabbit CLI is installed and authenticated
  2. Run the review on your current changes
  3. Present findings grouped by severity — Critical, Warning, and Info
  4. Optionally fix issues and re-review until the output is clean

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CLI integration

The skill runs a CodeRabbit CLI review with structured agent output, selects the review scope from your request, and can compare changes against a base branch. The exact CLI flags are an implementation detail and may change independently of the skill’s natural language interface.

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Autonomous workflow

Skills enable a fully autonomous review-fix loop: Implement → Review → Fix Critical/Warning issues → Re-review until clean The agent continues iterating until no Critical or Warning issues remain, then provides a summary of everything that was fixed.

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autofix

The autofix skill fetches unresolved CodeRabbit review threads on your current branch’s pull request and helps you apply fixes interactively or in batch.
The autofix skill additionally requires the GitHub CLI (gh) to locate pull requests, query review threads, and post comments. The skill will attempt to install gh automatically if it is not found, but GitHub authentication must be completed manually.

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Triggering the skill

Activate the skill using natural language inside your AI agent:
  • “Autofix CodeRabbit comments”
  • “Fix CodeRabbit review issues”
  • “Review and fix CodeRabbit feedback”
The agent reads the installed SKILL.md file, finds your open PR, and pulls unresolved CodeRabbit review threads.

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How it works

When triggered, the agent will:
  1. Check local branch status and warn about uncommitted or unpushed changes
  2. Locate the open pull request for the current branch
  3. Fetch unresolved review threads authored by CodeRabbit
  4. Extract issue metadata and fix prompts from each thread
  5. Let you choose either review-each-fix mode or auto-fix-all mode
  6. Apply selected fixes and create one consolidated commit
  7. Prompt the user if the commit should be pushed upstream

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CLI commands used by the skill

The skill relies on GitHub CLI plus Git commands:

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Fix modes

The skill supports two fix paths:
  • Review each issue: See each proposed fix and approve, defer, or modify it.
  • Auto-fix all: Apply all eligible fixes in batch, prioritized from highest severity first.
In both modes, the skill uses CodeRabbit’s “Prompt for AI Agents” (the agent-ready fix instruction) guidance from each unresolved thread as the fix specification.

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Troubleshooting

Verify that the skill has a SKILL.md file in the directory expected by your agent. Run coderabbit skills again for a supported CLI installation, or repeat the package-runner command that owns the existing installation.
Check two things:
  1. Installation directory: The skill file must be in the path your agent expects (see Supported agents).
  2. Frontmatter validity: The SKILL.md file must have valid frontmatter. Run coderabbit skills to preview whether the CLI can safely update it; unverifiable or externally owned conflicts are left unchanged.
If you encounter permission errors when writing to the project directory, try installing to your user directory instead:
This error means the CodeRabbit CLI is not installed or not on your PATH. Reinstall the CLI and then restart your shell:
Re-authenticate the CodeRabbit CLI:
A browser window opens automatically. Sign in to CodeRabbit and the authentication completes in the browser.If you belong to multiple CodeRabbit organizations, the sign-in choice sets your default org only. Review attribution still depends on the current repository. See Organization selection.

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Verification commands

Use these commands to confirm your CLI setup is working before filing a skills-related issue:
For detailed CLI troubleshooting, see the CLI overview.