> Using Vercel's Skills Library to Supercharge AI Agents for React Native

AI coding agents are only as good as the context you give them. Out of the box, tools like Claude Code or Cursor know plenty about React Native in general, but they don't know the specifics of your project: your folder conventions, your preferred libraries, or the gotchas your team has discovered over time. You end up repeating the same instructions across conversations.

Vercel's Skills library solves this by letting you package reusable instruction sets that any compatible agent can pick up. Think of skills as context you write once and apply everywhere. The library works across 35+ different coding agents, so you're not locked into one tool.

Installing Skills

The skills CLI runs through npx, so there's nothing to install globally. To add a skill from a repository:

npx skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills

During installation, the CLI will detect which agents you have installed and ask where to install the skill. You can scope it to your current project (the skill travels with the repo) or install it globally (available in all projects).

The CLI also asks whether to symlink the skill or copy it. Symlinks mean you get updates automatically when the source changes, which is usually what you want for community-maintained skills.

What a Skill Looks Like

Skills are just markdown files with YAML frontmatter. Here's a minimal example:

---
name: React Native Build Recovery
description: Instructions for recovering from common React Native build failures
---

When a React Native build fails, try these approaches in order before escalating:

For iOS build failures, first clear derived data and reinstall pods:
`rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData && cd ios && pod install --repo-update`

For Android build failures, clean the Gradle cache:
`cd android && ./gradlew clean`

If Metro is running but the app won't connect, reset the bundler cache:
`npx react-native start --reset-cache`

The agent reads this skill and incorporates its instructions when relevant. If you ask the agent to fix a build error, it now has specific recovery steps to try rather than generic suggestions.

Skills for React Native Workflows

Here are some skills worth creating for React Native projects:

A navigation skill that describes your app's navigation structure. If you're using React Navigation, document your navigator hierarchy, screen names, and any deep linking configuration. When you ask the agent to add a new screen or fix a navigation bug, it knows where things live.

A state management skill for your chosen approach. Whether you're using Redux, Zustand, or React Query, document the patterns your team follows. Where do slices go? How do you structure async actions? What's the naming convention for selectors? This prevents the agent from generating code that technically works but doesn't match your codebase.

A native modules skill if your project bridges to native code. Document which native modules exist, what they do, and how to modify them. Agents can edit Swift and Kotlin, but they need context about your project's specific native layer to do it well.

An environment skill describing your development setup. Which simulator or emulator to target, what environment variables to set, how to switch between staging and production APIs. The agent can then run commands with the right configuration without you specifying it every time.

Sharing Skills Across a Team

Since skills can be installed at project scope, they're great for encoding team knowledge. Put your skills in a skills/ directory in your repo (or use .claude/skills/ for Claude-specific ones), and anyone who clones the project gets the same context.

This is especially valuable for onboarding. New team members get an AI assistant that already knows how your project works, not just how React Native works in general. The alternative is writing extensive documentation that nobody reads.

You can also maintain a shared skills repo that multiple projects reference:

npx skills add your-org/react-native-skills

If your organization has common patterns across projects, centralize them. Update the skills repo and everyone gets the improvements next time they sync.

Combining with MCP Servers

Skills provide static context, the instructions an agent refers to when needed. For dynamic context, combine them with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers. An Xcode MCP server gives the agent live access to build status and diagnostics. Skills tell the agent what to do with that information.

For example, a skill might say "when iOS builds fail with a signing error, check the team ID in the project settings." The MCP server provides the actual error. The agent combines both to diagnose and fix the issue without you explaining the context each time.

Managing Skills

List your installed skills with:

npx skills list

Update all symlinked skills:

npx skills update

Remove a skill you no longer need:

npx skills remove skill-name

The CLI handles the underlying complexity of different agents storing skills in different locations. You don't need to remember whether Cursor uses .cursor/skills/ or something else.

When to Write Your Own

Community skills are useful, but the biggest wins come from skills tailored to your project. Every time you find yourself explaining the same thing to an AI agent, consider writing it down as a skill instead.

That might be your project's error handling patterns, your testing conventions, your API client structure, or the weird Metro configuration issue that took you a day to figure out. The investment is small (it's just a markdown file) and the payoff compounds across every conversation with every team member.

Start with one or two skills for your biggest friction points and expand from there. The Skills library isn't about building an elaborate system. It's about not repeating yourself to a computer.