A curated collection of AI agent skills for the Cirrus UK National Compute Resource HPC systems, served at skills.cirrus.ac.uk.
Agent skills are plain Markdown instruction files that teach AI coding assistants (such as Claude Code) how to perform specific tasks correctly in your environment. Loading a skill gives the agent up-to-date, site-specific knowledge without you having to explain the environment from scratch every session.
!!! Note “Based on skills.isambard.ac.uk” This repository draws heavily on the original skills.isambard.ac.uk repository
| Skill | Description | URL |
|---|---|---|
| General | Top level skill that describes how to use Cirrus including login access and checks to make before running code and scripts on Cirrus | https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/skills/general/SKILL.md |
| Slurm | Submit, monitor and manage HPC jobs on Cirrus using the Slurm workload manager | https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/skills/slurm/SKILL.md |
| Python | Install and manage Python environments on Cirrus using Conda (Miniforge), uv, or Cray Python | https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/skills/python/SKILL.md |
| Modules | Use the modules system, Cray Programming Environments, compiler wrappers (cc, CC, ftn), GNU and NVIDIA compilers, and profiling tools on Cirrus | https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/skills/modules/SKILL.md |
| MPI | Use MPI on Cirrus with Cray MPICH or OpenMPI. Covers PMI types, srun –mpi flags, Slingshot 11 performance, and why mpirun/mpiexec must not be used | https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/skills/mpi/SKILL.md |
Add the Cirrus marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk
Install the cirrus plugin from the marketplace:
/plugin install cirrus@cirrus-skills
Or add to your project’s .claude/settings.json to enable automatically:
{
"extraKnownMarketplaces": {
"cirrus-skills": {
"source": {
"source": "url",
"url": "https://skills.cirrus.ac.uk/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json"
}
}
},
"enabledPlugins": { "cirrus@cirrus-skills": true }
}
Reload skills to find and activate skills provided by Cirrus plugin:
/reload-skills
View skills provided by Cirrus plugin:
/skills
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Skills
5 skills · Space to cycle, Enter to save, / to search, t to sort, Esc to cancel
╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ⌕ Search skills… │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
❯ 🔒 on cirrus:docs · plugin · ~100 tok · locked by plugin
🔒 on cirrus:modules · plugin · ~180 tok · locked by plugin
🔒 on cirrus:mpi · plugin · ~170 tok · locked by plugin
🔒 on cirrus:python · plugin · ~150 tok · locked by plugin
🔒 on cirrus:slurm · plugin · ~190 tok · locked by plugin
Plugin skills are managed via /plugin
.claude-plugin
marketplace.json # Claude Code plugin marketplace catalog
site/plugins/cirrus/ # Skills files
skills/
slurm/
SKILL.md # Slurm skill file (AgentSkills spec format)
docs/
SKILL.md # User documentation skill file (AgentSkills spec format)
...etc..
marketplace.json # Simple skills index for other agent tools
.github/
agents/
skills-agent.md # Instructions for AI agents on creating skills
CNAME # Custom domain configuration
README.md # This file
See .github/agents/skills-agent.md
for the full conventions on how skills are structured, named, and
registered in the marketplace.
For full Cirrus documentation visit docs.cirrus.ac.uk.