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Sam DespoNewsletter

Curated list 5 min read8 Oct 2026

The best Claude skills and MCPs

The skills and MCP servers I keep coming back to, with a link to each repo and a plain-English line on what it does.

On this page

🛠️ Skills

Ponytail

URL: github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail

Ponytail is a set of rules that makes Claude Code simplify its code and write the smallest amount that actually works. The result is roughly 55% less code, 50% cheaper and 27% faster, without cutting validation, security or accessibility.

Marketing Skills

URL: github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills

Marketing skills for Claude Code and AI agents covering CRO, copywriting, SEO, analytics and growth engineering. Now 17+ skills (grown from an original set of around 7), including landing page CRO, email sequences, pricing strategy and social content.

Awesome Claude Skills

URL: github.com/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills

A curated directory of 1000+ production-ready Claude skills and plugins across Claude.ai, Claude Code and other coding agents. Includes the "connect-apps" plugin (built on Composio) that lets Claude perform real actions like sending emails, creating issues and posting to Slack across 1000+ connected apps.

Banana Claude

URL: github.com/AgriciDaniel/banana-claude

Turns Claude into an AI creative director for image generation via Google's Gemini "Nano Banana" models. Interprets your intent, picks the right domain expertise (product, portrait, logo, UI and more) and constructs an optimised prompt using a 5-component formula. Handles text-to-image, editing, batch workflows and brand presets.

Remotion

URL: github.com/remotion-dev/remotion

An open-source framework for creating videos programmatically with React and code. Remotion now ships official agent skills so Claude Code and other coding agents can write Remotion projects following best practice for timing, media and composition.

Context Engineering

URL: github.com/coleam00/context-engineering-intro

A template and "context engineering" workflow for Claude Code built around PRPs (Product Requirements Prompts): project rules, code examples and a generate/execute-PRP flow that gives the AI full context up front so it implements features correctly with fewer back-and-forth prompts.

Stop Slop

URL: github.com/hardikpandya/stop-slop

One of the favourites on this list. Teaches Claude to catch and remove predictable AI writing patterns, banned phrases and structural clichés. And yes, it also removes all those em dashes.

Skill Seekers

URL: github.com/yusufkaraaslan/Skill_Seekers

Converts 18+ source types (documentation sites, GitHub repos, PDFs, videos, Word/EPUB/AsciiDoc docs, Jupyter notebooks, OpenAPI specs, wikis and more) into structured AI skills, exportable to Claude, LangChain, Cursor and 20+ other platforms.

Last 30 Days

URL: github.com/mvanhorn/last30days-skill

An agent skill that researches a topic across Reddit, X, YouTube, Hacker News, Polymarket, GitHub and the web, scores results by real engagement (upvotes, likes, betting odds) and synthesises a grounded, cited summary of what's happening right now.

Impeccable

URL: github.com/pbakaus/impeccable

A design skill that gives Claude (and other coding agents) a shared design language so generated websites and UI don't look like generic AI slop. 20+ commands (polish, audit, critique, animate and more) plus dozens of detector rules covering typography, colour, layout and interaction states.

Awesome Agent Skills

URL: github.com/VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills

A curated collection of 1000+ agent skills from official dev teams (Anthropic, Google, Vercel, Stripe, Cloudflare, Hugging Face and more) plus community-built skills, compatible with Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other agents.

Prompt Master

URL: github.com/nidhinjs/prompt-master

Writes precise, tool-specific prompts for 20+ AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Midjourney and more). Extracts 9 dimensions of intent and carries context forward across a session, so you get the right output the first time instead of burning tokens on re-prompts.

Hallmark

URL: github.com/nutlope/hallmark

An anti-AI-slop design skill for Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, focused on websites and UI rather than presentations. Picks a distinct page structure and theme, then runs dozens of "slop test" checks on typography, colour, layout and motion so pages look intentionally designed instead of templated.

I have ADHD

URL: github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd

AI assistants love to waffle, so you have to read three paragraphs before you find out what to actually type. This is a set of rules that makes yours lead with the action, number the steps, and skip the "great question" and "hope this helps" padding.

🔌 MCPs

Perplexity MCP

URL: github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol

Perplexity's official MCP server. Lets Claude search the web in real time via the Perplexity API for current, cited information.

Gmail MCP Server

URL: developers.google.com/workspace/gmail

Google's official Gmail MCP server (currently in Developer Preview). Lets Claude create and manage drafts, search threads, and add or remove labels in your Gmail account. As it stands it does not support sending emails, attachments or deleting messages, so double-check those before relying on it for full inbox automation.

Chrome DevTools MCP

URL: github.com/ChromeDevTools/chrome-devtools-mcp (also listed on mcpservers.org if you want to browse alternatives)

Allows Claude to see and interact with anything inside Google Chrome in real time, including inspecting the DOM and performance, so it can run entire tasks or workflows in your live browser.

Browserbase MCP

URL: github.com/browserbase/mcp-server-browserbase

Lets Claude browse the web in a managed, headless browser to scrape data and research beyond what Claude can do natively.

Higgsfield MCP

URL: higgsfield.ai/mcp

Gives Claude the ability to generate images and videos using Higgsfield's models without leaving your workflow.

Firecrawl MCP

URL: mcpservers.org/servers/firecrawl-mcp-server

Firecrawl's MCP server adds web scraping, crawling, sitemap parsing and structured (schema-based) data extraction to Claude, turning any website into clean markdown or JSON.

NotebookLM MCP

URL: mcpservers.org/servers/pleaseprompto/notebooklm-mcp

A community-built (unofficial, not made by Google) MCP server that connects Claude to Google NotebookLM via browser automation, letting Claude ask citation-backed questions grounded only in your own uploaded notebooks.

Playwright MCP

URL: mcpservers.org/servers/playwright-mcp-server

Microsoft's official MCP server for browser automation via Playwright. Lets Claude navigate pages, click, type, take screenshots and inspect the DOM through structured accessibility snapshots. Useful for testing and multi-step web workflows.

Context7

URL: context7.com

Upstash's MCP server that pulls up-to-date, version-specific documentation and code examples for almost any library straight into Claude. It stops Claude from guessing at outdated APIs, so the code it writes matches the version you're actually using.

Blotato MCP

URL: blotato.com/mcp

A hosted social media MCP server that lets Claude publish, schedule and analyse content across 9 platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky and Pinterest) using each platform's official API. It also handles Instagram and Facebook comments and DMs, all from a single endpoint with no local setup.

Enjoy :)

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From the library

  • Ponytail

    Coding Workflows

    Makes Claude write the smallest code that works, cutting tokens and cost by about half.

    Open source
  • Stop Slop

    Writing & Prompts

    Strips predictable AI phrases, clichéd structures and em dashes from Claude's writing.

    Open source
  • Impeccable

    Design & Front-end

    A design skill with 24 commands so your sites and apps stop looking like AI templates.

    Open source
  • Last 30 Days

    Productivity

    Researches any topic across Reddit, X, YouTube and more, ranked by real engagement.

    Open source
  • Lets Claude generate images and videos with models like Nano Banana and Seedance.

    Freemium
  • Playwright MCP

    Browser & Search

    Gives Claude a real web browser so it can click around, test and screenshot sites.

    Open source
  • Chrome DevTools MCP

    Browser & Search

    Lets Claude inspect a live Chrome tab to find slow pages, errors and network faults.

    Open source
  • Firecrawl MCP

    Browser & Search

    Lets Claude turn any website into clean text it can read, search and crawl.

    Freemium
  • Marketing Skills

    Marketing & SEO

    Fifty marketing playbooks, from landing-page copy and email flows to ads and pricing.

    Open source

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