How to Use AI Skills in Claude Desktop, Cursor & VS Code

What Is an AI Skill?

An AI skill is a pre-built instruction set — a system prompt — that tells your AI assistant exactly how to behave for a specific task. Instead of writing a fresh prompt every time you need a code review, legal summary, or customer support response, a skill encodes the entire expert persona, process, and output format once and makes it reusable across any AI session.

GenPrompt's Skills Library contains 40+ pre-built skills across Marketing, Engineering, Customer Support, Legal, Finance, HR, Product, Sales, Data, and Education. Each skill is production-tested and available as a downloadable .md file or via the GenPrompt MCP server.

Method 1: Use a Skill in the GenPrompt Prompt Builder

The fastest way to try a skill requires no setup at all:

1. Go to gen-prompt.me/skills and browse the library.
2. Click on any skill to open the detail panel.
3. Click Use in Prompt Builder — the skill is loaded as your system prompt.
4. Type your request in the user message field and generate.

The Prompt Builder applies the skill's full instruction set to every generation. You'll immediately see the difference between a generic response and one shaped by expert-level constraints.

Method 2: Use a Skill in Claude Desktop or Cursor

Claude Desktop and Cursor both support custom system prompts via .md files. Here's how to deploy a GenPrompt skill in either tool:

1. Open the skill in GenPrompt and click Download .md.
2. For Claude Desktop: Go to Settings → Custom Instructions → paste the skill content, or drop the .md file into a Project and set it as the project instructions.
3. For Cursor: Create a .cursorrules file in your project root and paste the skill content. Cursor automatically applies it to every AI interaction in that workspace.
4. For Windsurf: Create a .windsurfrules file in your project root — same format as Cursor rules.

Once the skill is installed, every conversation in that context starts with the AI already operating as the expert role defined in the skill — no need to repeat your instructions.

Method 3: Use a Skill in VS Code Copilot

GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code supports custom instructions via the.github/copilot-instructions.md file in your repository:

1. Create a .github/ folder in your repo root if it doesn't exist.
2. Create a file named copilot-instructions.md.
3. Paste the GenPrompt skill content into this file.
4. Commit the file — Copilot Chat will apply it automatically to all conversations in that repo.

This is especially powerful for team environments: one committed instructions file means every developer on the team gets the same AI behaviour without any individual setup.

Method 4: Connect via MCP Server

GenPrompt's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server gives Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible tool live access to your entire skills library. Instead of downloading files manually, you can search and apply skills directly from a conversation.

Add this to your MCP config file (~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.jsonfor Claude Desktop, or your Cursor/Windsurf MCP config). Once connected, you can ask Claude: "Use the Code Review skill to review this PR" and it will fetch and apply the skill automatically.

Which Method Should You Use?

• Trying for the first time: Prompt Builder — minimal setup, instant results.
• Single project in Cursor/VS Code: Rules file in project root — version-controlled and team-shared.
• Claude Desktop for general use: Custom Instructions or Project Instructions.
• Accessing many skills dynamically: MCP server — search and apply any skill from within a conversation.