Skip to main content

What are Skills?

Skills are reusable instruction sets - defined in SKILL.md files - that extend your coding agent’s capabilities with Bright Data APIs. Each skill gives your agent embedded best practices, parameter knowledge, and runnable shell scripts it can execute directly. Install Bright Data skills and your agent immediately knows:
  • Which API to call for search, scraping, or structured data extraction
  • How to authenticate and structure requests correctly
  • How to handle pagination, errors, and edge cases
  • Real scripts it can invoke to take action
Skills are part of the open agent skills ecosystem and work across 40+ coding agents. Bright Data’s skills are hosted at github.com/brightdata/skills.

Available Skills


Quick Start

1

Prerequisites

Install the required CLI tools and set your Bright Data credentials:
# macOS
brew install curl jq

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt-get install curl jq
export BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export BRIGHTDATA_UNLOCKER_ZONE="your-zone-name"
Get your API key from the Bright Data user settings page. To create a Web Unlocker zone, see the Web Unlocker quickstart.
2

Install with npx skills

Use the npx skills CLI to install Bright Data skills into your agent:
# Install all skills (auto-detects your installed agents)
npx skills add brightdata/skills

# Install to a specific agent only
npx skills add brightdata/skills -a claude-code
npx skills add brightdata/skills -a cursor

# Install a specific skill only
npx skills add brightdata/skills --skill search
npx skills add brightdata/skills --skill scrape
npx skills add brightdata/skills --skill data-feeds
npx skills add brightdata/skills --skill bright-data-best-practices

# Install globally (available across all your projects)
npx skills add brightdata/skills -g
The CLI detects which agents you have installed and places skill files in the correct directories automatically.
3

Use the skills in your agent

Once installed, your agent can run the skills directly:
# Search Google
bash skills/search/scripts/search.sh "your query" [page]

# Scrape a URL as clean markdown
bash skills/scrape/scripts/scrape.sh "https://example.com"

# Extract structured data (run without args to see all 40+ dataset types)
bash skills/data-feeds/scripts/datasets.sh

# With a specific dataset type and URL
bash skills/data-feeds/scripts/datasets.sh amazon_product "https://amazon.com/dp/ASIN"
bash skills/data-feeds/scripts/datasets.sh linkedin_person_profile "https://linkedin.com/in/username"

Installation per agent

npx skills add brightdata/skills -a claude-code
Skills are installed into .claude/skills/ in your project (or ~/.claude/skills/ with -g for global). Claude Code discovers them automatically on the next session.To verify installation:
npx skills list -a claude-code

Skill structure

Each Bright Data skill follows the standard skill format:
skills/
├── search/
│   ├── SKILL.md              # Instructions + metadata - loaded by the agent
│   └── scripts/
│       └── search.sh         # Executable script the agent can run
├── scrape/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   └── scripts/
│       └── scrape.sh
├── data-feeds/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   └── scripts/
│       ├── datasets.sh       # Dataset wrapper (40+ types)
│       └── fetch.sh          # Core polling + response handling
├── bright-data-mcp/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   └── references/           # MCP tool reference docs
└── bright-data-best-practices/
    ├── SKILL.md              # API selection guide + auth patterns + code examples
    └── references/
        ├── web-unlocker.md   # Full Web Unlocker reference
        ├── serp-api.md       # Full SERP API reference (Google, Bing, Maps, Trends...)
        ├── web-scraper-api.md # Web Scraper API reference (100+ platforms)
        └── browser-api.md    # Browser API reference (CDP functions, geo, CAPTCHA)
SKILL.md contains YAML frontmatter with a name and description, followed by structured instructions that tell the agent when and how to use the skill.

Data Feeds coverage

The Data Feeds skill supports structured extraction from 40+ platforms across four categories:

E-Commerce

Amazon (products, reviews, search), Walmart, eBay, Best Buy, Etsy, Home Depot, Zara, Google Shopping

Professional Networks

LinkedIn (profiles, companies, jobs, posts), Crunchbase, ZoomInfo

Social Media

Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, Reddit

Other

Google Maps reviews, Yahoo Finance, Zillow, Booking.com, Reuters, GitHub, App Stores

Managing your skills

# List all installed skills
npx skills list

# Check for updates
npx skills check

# Update all skills to latest
npx skills update

# Remove a skill
npx skills remove brightdata/skills

For the richest agent setup, combine skills with the Bright Web MCP Server. Skills give your agent embedded knowledge and runnable scripts; the MCP server gives it live web access with 60+ tools - all without leaving your coding environment.
New skills are added regularly. Star the GitHub repository to stay updated.