Your first skill: finding, evaluating, and installing
How to find, evaluate, and install your first skill or product into the right harness in under 10 minutes.
Installing your first harness skill or product takes under 10 minutes if you know what you're looking for. This guide walks you through finding a skill that matches a real job you need done, choosing the right target harness, checking it before you install, and getting it running.
Step 1 — Define the job first
Don't start by browsing. Start with a specific task you actually need to do. 'Summarise long documents' is better than 'AI writing'. 'Monitor a competitor's website for changes' is better than 'web tools'.
The more specific your starting point, the faster you'll find a skill that actually solves the problem rather than one that almost does.
Step 2 — Search and filter by trust
In the ClawCurrent directory, search for your task or browse by category. You'll see a trust score next to every listing. Filter to 75+ to see skills with strong verification signals.
Don't install anything with a trust score below 60 without reading the full trust breakdown. Low scores don't always mean bad — they sometimes just mean the tool is new or the documentation is thin — but you should know before you commit.
Step 3 — Read the listing before you install
A ClawCurrent listing tells you:
• Who built it and when it was last updated
• What the skill actually does (not just the marketing description)
• Known issues or active advisories
• Compatible models and APIs
• Community notes
Take two minutes here. The skills that cause problems are almost always the ones people installed without reading.
Step 4 — Install and test with a simple input
Every skill has an installation guide linked from its listing. Follow it exactly. Once installed, test with the simplest possible input first — a short document, a single URL, one data point.
If it works on the simple case, try your real use case. If it fails on the simple case, check the troubleshooting section in the listing or the skill's documentation before doing anything else.
The most common mistake is installing first and reading later. Read the listing, check the trust score, then install. It adds two minutes and saves you hours.