# Discovering Skills

> Markdown variant of <https://www.skillzdrive.com/docs/guides/discovering-skills>.

Find the right skill for any task — from your personal library or
the public marketplace.

## Two places to look

Skills live in two places. Your agent knows the difference and
searches the right one based on what you ask.

**Your drive** — skills you own, skills from your teams, and skills
shared with you. These are ready to use immediately.

> "What skills do I have?"
> "Do I have anything for PDFs?"

**The marketplace** — hundreds of public skills and the GitHub
skill catalog. Browse, import to your drive, and start using
immediately.

> "Find me a skill for data visualization"
> "What's available for working with spreadsheets?"

## How agents discover skills

The MCP tools that drive discovery:

- `skills_listSkills` — list everything in your drive (your skills + team + shared, filtered by API key scope).
- `skills_searchSkills(query)` — focused search of your drive by keyword.
- `skills_discoverSkills(keywords, offset)` — broad search of the public marketplace + cached GitHub catalog. Paginated 10/page.
- `skills_getLeaderboard(sort_by)` — top public skills by executions, installs, or rating.
- `skills_importToDrive(slug)` — bring a marketplace skill into your drive (charges credits per skill size).

When the user asks about something they already have, the agent
calls `searchSkills` or `listSkills`. When the user asks for
something new, the agent calls `discoverSkills`. The
`skillzdrive-mcp-guide` skill teaches this routing automatically.

## Real-world examples

### Find a skill you already have

> You: "I need to merge some PDF files. Do I have a skill for that?"
> Agent: searches your drive → finds "PDF Manipulation" with 3 scripts → ready to run.

### Discover something new from the marketplace

> You: "I need to analyze some survey data. Are there any skills for that on the marketplace?"
> Agent: searches marketplace → finds "Data Analyzer" and "Survey Insights" → imports your choice → runs it on your data.

### See your full library

> You: "Show me everything in my skill library."
> Agent: lists all skills → shows your personal skills, team skills, and shared skills in one view.

### Import and use in one step

> You: "Find a skill for creating presentations and use it to make a slide deck from this outline."
> Agent: searches marketplace → imports skill → runs it → presentation created.

## Two types of skills

### Script-based skills

Run code to get things done — convert files, analyze data, generate
reports, process images. Your agent runs the script in a cloud
sandbox (or locally) and returns the results.

Identifier: `hasScripts: true` in the skill metadata.

### Template-based skills

Provide knowledge and guidelines — writing styles, brand guides,
code patterns, workflows. Your agent reads the skill's documentation
and applies it to your task.

Identifier: `hasScripts: false`. The agent uses `skills_docTOC` and
`skills_docSection` instead of `skills_runScript`.

## Notes

- Your library automatically includes skills from your personal drive, team drives, and skills shared directly with you. All three sources are combined — no extra configuration needed.
- Importing a skill from the marketplace charges credits based on the skill's size. Skills already in your drive are free to use anytime.
- The catalog is dynamic — never hardcode skill lists. Always discover via `searchSkills`/`listSkills`/`discoverSkills`.

## Next steps

- [Executing scripts](https://www.skillzdrive.com/docs/guides/executing-scripts.md): how script-based skills run, session management, output.
- [Managing drive with AI](https://www.skillzdrive.com/docs/guides/managing-drive.md): organize skills, create collections, browse the marketplace.
- [MCP tools reference](https://www.skillzdrive.com/docs/reference/tools.md): every `skills_*` tool with arguments.