Skills & connectors · 78 free tools
Give your AI new jobs
The skills and connectors worth installing, sorted by what you want done. Everything here is free or open source. Most of it works in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Cursor, not just one of them.
Skill
A folder with a SKILL.md file: instructions your AI loads when a task matches. Teaches it how to do a job. Open standard, works across tools.
MCP connector
A small server that plugs your AI into an app or data source. Gives it access: your files, your store, your browser. Also an open standard.
Install
Skills: upload the folder in Claude's settings, or drop it in your agent's skills folder. Connectors: add the server in your app's connector settings. Each link has setup steps.
Built by me
Thirteen skills I run myself: three for building and publishing this site and the services behind it, ten for running a Shopify store with an agent. Download, drop in, point at your tools.
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Skill · Research & content
AI use case scout
Find, vet and rank real AI use cases from the open web twice a week, and hand back three worth building or writing about, with sources
Get the skill -
Skill · Business & operations
Automation Map intake
Run a structured discovery interview with a small business and turn the answers into a ranked automation blueprint with effort, payoff and build order
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Skill · Content & publishing
Build Log issue writer
Turn build notes into a site teardown, a newsletter issue and a week of social posts in one pass, in a plain, unhedged voice with the failures left in
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Skill · E-commerce
Cross-Sell Recommender
Build PDP-ready cross-sell recommendations from Shopify co-purchase data
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Skill · E-commerce
Customer Segmentation
Build behavioral customer segments from Shopify data for retention and re-engagement
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Skill · E-commerce
Inventory + Ad Spend Check
Find Shopify products approaching OOS while still receiving heavy paid ad spend
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Skill · E-commerce
LTV + Cohort View
Compute 30/60/90-day LTV by Shopify acquisition channel, ranked by margin and LTV/CAC
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Skill · E-commerce
Pricing + Margin Audit
Audit Shopify pricing and discounts to find SKUs sold below margin floor
Get the skill -
Skill · E-commerce
Product Description Rewriter
Rewrite Shopify product descriptions in brand voice, 60-90 words each, with consistent structure
Get the skill -
Skill · E-commerce
Refund Pattern Analysis
Analyze Shopify refunds by product, reason, and cohort to find SKUs unfit for paid ads
Get the skill -
Skill · E-commerce
SEO Meta Generator
Generate intent-matched meta titles and descriptions for Shopify PDPs using Search Console queries
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Skill · E-commerce
Shopify CRO Agent
Walk Shopify funnel from PDP to checkout, pinpoint drop-offs, and suggest prioritized fixes
Get the skill -
Skill · E-commerce
Theme Tweaks (No Dev)
Write Liquid and CSS for small Shopify theme changes without a developer
Get the skill
In use, generic versions coming
- Store operating manualOne skill that holds a dropshipping store's rules: niches, suppliers, pricing floors, ad tests, weekly review.
- Weekly KPI reviewMonday review of spend, CPA, ROAS, conversion, AOV and refunds, ending in decisions, not charts.
- Ad creative test matrixStructured Meta and TikTok creative tests with naming rules, budgets and kill rules.
- 30-day content calendarShort-video and Pinterest calendar across four pillars with hooks, shot lists and captions.
- Supplier re-sourcingRe-prices a SKU against alternative suppliers and enforces a 3x landed-cost floor.
- Support macrosCustomer replies in brand voice for shipping, damage, returns and sizing, with escalation rules.
- Creator outreachFinds micro-creators, drafts gifting DMs and tracks usage rights.
- Smart home device sourcingVets Thread, Matter and Zigbee devices for Home Assistant and keeps a room-by-room tracker.
Build your own
Start here. Tools that help you make skills and connectors of your own.
- skill-creator Interviews you, then writes, tests and tunes a new skill for you.
- mcp-builder Guides your AI through building a working MCP server for any API.
- Agent Skills standard The open SKILL.md format. One skill works in Claude, ChatGPT/Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor and Copilot.
- MCP reference servers The official starter servers: Fetch, Filesystem, Git, Memory, Time.
Coding
For building and shipping software, even if you don't write it yourself.
- GitHub MCP Server Lets your AI read repos, open issues and pull requests, and check build results.
- Context7 Feeds your AI current library docs so it stops writing outdated code.
- Chrome DevTools MCP Opens your site in Chrome, reads the errors and measures page speed.
- Superpowers Makes coding agents plan, test and debug before they write code.
- frontend-design + webapp-testing Polished web interfaces, then tests them in a real browser.
- Vercel Agent Skills Best-practice skills for building and deploying React and Next.js apps.
Design
Visuals, diagrams, 3D and audio.
- canvas-design, theme-factory, brand-guidelines Posters, generative art and consistent colour and font themes.
- Framelink Figma MCP Gives your AI the layout and styles of a Figma file so it can build it.
- Excalidraw MCP Draws editable hand-sketched diagrams right in the chat.
- AntV Chart MCP Turns your numbers into ready-made charts.
- Blender MCP Builds and edits 3D scenes in Blender from plain instructions.
- ElevenLabs MCP Voiceovers, sound effects and transcripts from text or audio.
Documents
Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF without opening Office.
- MarkItDown Turns PDFs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint into clean text your AI can read.
- Docling MCP Pulls text and tables out of messy PDFs and scans.
- Excel MCP Reads and writes Excel files, formulas and charts, no Excel needed.
- Office Word MCP Creates and edits .docx files with headings, tables and comments.
- Office PowerPoint MCP Builds and edits .pptx decks.
- docx, xlsx, pptx, pdf skills Anthropic's document skills. Excellent, but source-available, not open source.
Research & web
Search, read and drive the web.
- Fetch Reads any web page and hands your AI the text.
- Playwright MCP Drives a real browser: click, type, fill forms, screenshot.
- SearXNG MCP Private web search through your own search instance. No API keys.
- Browser Use A browser agent that completes multi-step web tasks.
- Firecrawl MCP Scrapes and crawls sites into clean text.
- Exa MCP Searches the web by meaning. Good for companies, papers and code.
E-commerce
Run a store with an agent. My own Shopify skills are at the top of this page.
- Shopify Dev MCP Answers Shopify API and theme questions from the official docs.
- Shopify AI Toolkit Skills and docs search for building Shopify apps and running stores.
- WooCommerce MCP Manages WooCommerce products and orders (developer preview).
- Stripe Agent Toolkit Payment links, customers, invoices and refunds in Stripe.
- PayPal Agent Toolkit PayPal invoices, orders and payment lookups.
- Square MCP Square catalogue, orders, customers and payments.
Sales & CRM
Research, prep and pipeline.
- Knowledge Work Plugins: sales Prospect research, call prep, pipeline review and outreach drafts.
- Twenty CRM MCP Manages people, companies and tasks in the open-source Twenty CRM.
- Salesforce DX MCP Queries and updates Salesforce data.
- HubSpot MCP Searches and updates HubSpot contacts, companies and deals.
Data
Ask questions of your numbers in plain English.
- DuckDB / MotherDuck MCP Fast SQL over local CSV, Parquet and Excel files.
- MCP Toolbox for Databases Safe access to Postgres, MySQL, BigQuery and more.
- Google Analytics MCP Plain-English questions about your GA4 traffic and conversions.
- Supabase MCP Manages your Supabase database and queries.
- Knowledge Work Plugins: data SQL, dataset exploration, charts and dashboards.
Productivity
Email, calendar, notes, files and memory.
- Filesystem Reads, writes and organises files in folders you allow.
- Memory A simple long-term memory of people, projects and facts.
- Google Workspace MCP Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs and Sheets from one server.
- Google Workspace CLI Command-line tool plus 40+ skills for Drive, Gmail, Calendar and Sheets.
- Notion MCP Searches, reads and edits Notion pages and databases.
- Obsidian MCP Searches and edits notes in your Obsidian vault.
- Todoist AI Adds, finds and completes tasks in Todoist.
Automation & infra
Hosting, deploys and workflows you own.
- Cloudflare MCP servers Docs, Workers, logs, DNS analytics and browser rendering.
- Cloudflare Skills Build and deploy on Cloudflare Workers.
- n8n-MCP Teaches your AI n8n's nodes so it can design and fix workflows.
- n8n Skills Helps your AI build correct n8n automations.
- Activepieces Open-source automation with 280+ integrations exposed as MCP tools.
- Docker MCP Gateway Runs many MCP servers safely in containers.
Smart home
Local-first control, no cloud needed.
- Home Assistant MCP Server Built into Home Assistant. Lets any AI control the devices you expose.
- ha-mcp 80+ tools to control devices and write automations and dashboards.
- Home Assistant skill Teaches your AI to write clean, reliable automations.
Find more
The lists I check before building anything myself.
- Official MCP Registry The canonical list of published MCP servers.
- awesome-mcp-servers The biggest community list, by category.
- anthropics/skills Official example skills and the spec.
- skills.sh Skills directory. Install with npx skills add owner/repo.
- awesome-agent-skills Cross-agent skills list.
- awesome-claude-skills Curated skills list.
No longer free (September 2026)
Posting to X through its API is now pay per post. Medium no longer issues new API tokens. Brave Search ended its free API tier. Tools built on those cost money, so they're flagged or left out.
Every link was checked in September 2026. Spotted a dead one or a better tool? Email me.
Newsletter · weekly
The Build Log
One system teardown a week. What I built, what it cost, what broke, and the exact prompts that did the heavy lifting. No tool listicles.
- A full build teardown with architecture
- The prompt or config that unlocked it
- The failures, with root causes
Weekly. Unsubscribe in one click. Read past issues.
Social media & content
Plan, write and publish. Read the cost notes: X and Medium are no longer free to automate.