Buildkite Skills
The official Buildkite skills for Claude Code, Cursor, and other AI coding
agents. Install them into your agent of choice so it can generate correct
pipeline YAML, run bk and buildkite-agent CLI commands, call the API,
configure agents, and run preflight builds.
Installation
npx skills add buildkite/skillsSee skills.sh for supported agents and options.
Cursor
Search for Buildkite Skills in the Cursor Marketplace, or run /add-plugin and search for "Buildkite".
Kiro
Recommended (one install): add the Buildkite power in the Powers panel, pointing at
github.com/buildkite/skills. The root POWER.md, mcp.json, and steering/
together give Kiro the Buildkite MCP server plus all six workflows (pipelines,
migration, preflight, agent-runtime, CLI, API), loaded automatically when relevant.
Alternatively, install individual workflows as Kiro skills via the Skills panel —
each skills/buildkite-*/ directory already conforms to the open Agent Skills standard.
Manual
Copy skill directories into your agent's skills folder:
# Claude Code
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r skills/buildkite-pipelines .claude/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-preflight .claude/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-agent-runtime .claude/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-cli .claude/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-api .claude/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-migration .claude/skills/
# Cursor
mkdir -p .cursor/skills
cp -r skills/buildkite-pipelines .cursor/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-preflight .cursor/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-agent-runtime .cursor/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-cli .cursor/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-api .cursor/skills/
cp -r skills/buildkite-migration .cursor/skills/Skills
Journey Skills
Skills organized by what you are trying to accomplish.
| Skill | Directory | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pipelines | skills/buildkite-pipelines/ | Pipeline YAML, step types, plugins, caching, parallelism, dynamic pipelines, matrix builds, artifacts, hooks |
| Migration | skills/buildkite-migration/ | CI migration planning, converting from GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI, Bitbucket Pipelines, GitLab CI using bk pipeline convert |
Cross-Cutting Skills
Skills needed across all journeys.
| Skill | Directory | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Preflight | skills/buildkite-preflight/ | bk preflight runs a CI build against local uncommitted changes |
| Agent Runtime | skills/buildkite-agent-runtime/ | buildkite-agent subcommands inside running job steps — annotate, artifact, meta-data, pipeline upload, OIDC, locks |
| CLI | skills/buildkite-cli/ | bk commands for builds, jobs, pipelines, secrets, artifacts, and auth |
| API | skills/buildkite-api/ | REST API, GraphQL API, webhooks, authentication, pagination |
How Skills Differ from Docs
Buildkite docs at buildkite.com/docs are the canonical reference for what Buildkite features exist and how they work.
Skills serve a different purpose: they encode expertise. Where docs explain every option, skills teach agents the right defaults, common patterns, and mistakes to avoid. A skill captures the judgment an experienced Buildkite user applies — which step type to reach for, how to structure a dynamic pipeline, when to use OIDC instead of static tokens.
In practice this means:
- Skills assume the agent already understands YAML, CI/CD concepts, and general programming
- SKILL.md files focus on quick starts, recommended patterns, and pitfall tables — not exhaustive option lists
- Detailed reference material lives in
references/subdirectories, loaded only when needed - Skills link to Buildkite docs rather than reproducing them
For more on content strategy, see CONVENTIONS.md.
Contributing
- Read CONVENTIONS.md — frontmatter format, section order, style rules, skill boundaries, quality checklist
- Review an existing complete skill as a quality benchmark (e.g.
skills/buildkite-pipelines/SKILL.md) - Check the boundary table in CONVENTIONS.md — each topic is owned by exactly one skill
- Write your skill following the section order and style rules
Documentation
Full Buildkite docs at buildkite.com/docs.