Guide

Install Nylas Skills for AI Coding Agents

The nylas/skills repository ships two drop-in skills — nylas-cli and nylas-api — that teach Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, Windsurf, and 30+ other AI coding agents how to use Nylas without any per-agent OAuth or MCP wiring. One command installs both.

Written by Qasim Muhammad Staff SRE

Reviewed by Pouya Sanooei

Verified — CLI 3.1.1 · Gmail, Outlook · last tested May 4, 2026

What is a Nylas skill?

A Nylas skill is a version-controlled bundle of instructions, worked examples, and command syntax that an AI coding agent loads alongside your project. The nylas/skills repository ships two MIT-licensed skills that cover the CLI's 72+ commands and the full Nylas v3 REST API, giving any compatible agent the context it needs to send mail, manage calendars, and build integrations without per-agent setup.

The agent reads each skill file the same way it reads a README — except skills are curated for AI consumption and include runnable examples. The nylas/skills repository ships two:

  • nylas-cli — teaches the agent how to send email, manage calendar events, sync contacts, and use the MCP server from the terminal. Pairs with the command reference.
  • nylas-api — teaches the agent how to build integrations against the Nylas v3 REST API: grants, OAuth, webhooks, scheduler, transactional send.

Skills work alongside (not instead of) the MCP integration. The Model Context Protocol gives the agent live access to your inbox; skills give it the knowledge of how to call that access correctly.

Install for Claude Code

Claude Code installs Nylas skills through its built-in plugin marketplace in a single command. The marketplace resolves the nylas/skills repository, downloads both skill files, and registers them with the agent's manifest. The full install takes under 5 seconds because the two skill files total less than 50 KB combined.

From the Claude Code prompt, run the marketplace add command to install both skills at once:

/plugin marketplace add nylas/skills

Both nylas-cli and nylas-api become available immediately. Claude Code surfaces them in the skills picker and loads them on demand when the conversation matches their description.

Install for Cursor, Codex CLI, Windsurf, and others

Cursor, Codex CLI, Windsurf, and 40+ other AI coding agents install Nylas skills through the open-source skills CLI published by Vercel Labs. The installer auto-detects which agent is active, writes the skill files to the directory that agent expects, and registers them with the agent's manifest. According to the skills CLI README, the tool supports over 40 agents including Cursor, Codex CLI, Cline, Continue, GitHub Copilot, and Windsurf.

Run the installer from your project root. The npx command downloads the latest version of the skills CLI, resolves the nylas/skills GitHub repository, and copies both skill files into the correct agent-specific directory:

# Install both Nylas skills
npx skills add nylas/skills

# Or install one at a time
npx skills add nylas/skills --skill nylas-cli
npx skills add nylas/skills --skill nylas-api

The installer places files where each agent expects them — .cursor/ for Cursor, AGENTS.md for Codex CLI, .claude-plugin/ for Claude Code, and so on. No manual file copying is needed.

Verify the skills loaded

Verification confirms the agent can resolve Nylas commands from a natural-language prompt without extra documentation. A correctly installed skill means the agent produces the right CLI invocation or API endpoint on the first attempt, cutting back-and-forth by 2-3 exchanges per task. Ask the agent a question that triggers one of the skills:

  • "Use nylas-cli to send an email from my Gmail account to test@example.com."
  • "Use nylas-api to list grants for my application."

A working install responds with the correct nylas email send invocation or the right v3 endpoint without you re-explaining the syntax. If the agent still asks for documentation, restart it so it picks up the new skill manifest.

Develop a fork or local copy

Forking the Nylas skills repository lets teams add internal-only conventions, custom command aliases, or proprietary API patterns without affecting the upstream repo. The skills CLI accepts a local filesystem path instead of a GitHub slug, so teams can iterate on skill content without publishing changes. Because each skill file is plain Markdown under 25 KB, edits are fast to review in a standard pull-request workflow.

Point the installer at the local fork and pass the --copy flag to inline the skill files directly into the project directory:

cd /path/to/your/project
npx skills add /path/to/your/fork --agent claude-code --copy --all

The --copy flag inlines the skill files into the project so they ship with the repo, rather than referencing the installed copy. This is useful for CI/CD pipelines where the agent environment doesn't have access to external repositories.

Next steps

With both skills installed, the agent can handle email, calendar, and contacts tasks using the CLI's 72+ commands and the Nylas v3 API's 15+ resource endpoints. The following guides cover related workflows for getting the CLI running, connecting live inbox access, and building agent-specific integrations.