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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 the CodeRabbit CLI
curl -fsSL https://cli.coderabbit.ai/install.sh | sh

# Authenticate
coderabbit auth login
For full CLI setup instructions, see the CLI overview.

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Supported agents

First-class support includes Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot, and Gemini CLI, with 35+ agents supported in total. 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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Installing Skills

Install the CodeRabbit skills package using npx: 
npx skills add coderabbitai/skills

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Installation options

Customize how skills are installed with these flags:
FlagPurpose
-g, --globalInstall to user directory instead of the current project
-a, --agentTarget a specific agent (e.g., -a claude-code)
-s, --skillInstall a particular skill by name
--allInstall all skills to all agents without prompts

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Installation commands

# Install for all detected agents in the current project
npx skills add coderabbitai/skills

# Install globally to your user directory
npx skills add coderabbitai/skills -g

# Install only for Claude Code
npx skills add coderabbitai/skills -a claude-code
Skills are installed as SKILL.md files into ~/.agents/skills directory or into the agent’s designated skills directory.

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Available Skills

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code-review

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

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Triggering the skill

Activate the skill using natural language inside your AI agent:
  • “Review my code”
  • “Check for security issues”
  • “What’s wrong with my changes?”
  • “Run a code review”
  • “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 flags used by the skill

The skill uses these CodeRabbit CLI flags internally:
FlagDescription
--prompt-onlyAgent-optimized output for agentic workflows
--plainDetailed plain text output
-tReview type (all, committed, uncommitted)
--baseBranch to compare against

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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:
CommandPurpose
gh pr list --head $(git branch --show-current) --state open --json number,titleFind the open PR for the current branch
gh api graphql ... pullRequest.reviewThreads ...Fetch unresolved CodeRabbit review threads
gh pr comment <pr-number> --body "<summary>"Post a run summary after fixes are applied
git add ... && git commit -m "fix: apply CodeRabbit auto-fixes"Create one consolidated commit

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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.md file exists in the correct directory for your agent. For example, for Claude Code the file should be at .claude/skills/code-review.md. Run npx skills add coderabbitai/skills again to reinstall if the file is missing.
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. Reinstalling with npx skills add coderabbitai/skills will overwrite any corrupted file.
If you encounter permission errors when writing to the project directory, try installing to your user directory instead:
npx skills add coderabbitai/skills -g
This error means the CodeRabbit CLI is not installed or not on your PATH. Run the install script and then restart your shell:
curl -fsSL https://cli.coderabbit.ai/install.sh | sh
source ~/.zshrc
Re-authenticate the CodeRabbit CLI:
coderabbit auth login
Follow the browser redirect, then paste the token back into your terminal.

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Verification commands

Use these commands to confirm your CLI setup is working before filing a skills-related issue: 
# Check the installed CLI version
coderabbit --version

# Verify authentication status
coderabbit auth status
For detailed CLI troubleshooting, see the CLI overview.