Vercel’s September 25 report on its skills.sh registry describes an agent-software ecosystem with a large catalog but sharply concentrated installation activity. The company reports one million skills and nearly 280 million installs, with just 375 skills accounting for 62% of installs.

The top 1.2% of skills capture 94% of installs, while nearly half of all skills have been installed exactly once, according to Vercel. Even the most-installed individual skill represents less than 1% of total installs, suggesting concentration across a group of popular tools rather than one dominant package.

Agent skills package reusable instructions and supporting resources for particular tasks. Anthropic’s original engineering description explains how agents can load this procedural context when relevant, extending their capabilities without putting every instruction into each conversation.

Demand extends beyond coding

In Vercel’s classified sample, software engineering accounts for 18% of installs, followed by agent workflows at roughly 15%. Business operations and writing each draw nearly 11%. Agent-workflow skills cover activities such as planning, routing work and using tools, making them applicable across multiple jobs.

Those category findings are not a census of the entire catalog. Vercel says the classified skills account for more than four-fifths of installs.

Installs are not effectiveness

The report uses aggregate registry counters, which do not represent unique people or necessarily independent choices. Its catalog total counts unique listings, not a million independently validated capabilities. The figures are Vercel’s own measurements, not an independent audit.

For teams selecting agent dependencies, the distinction matters: installation popularity can guide discovery, but it does not establish that a skill improves task completion. That still requires evaluation against the team’s actual workflows.