142 scientific agent skills, one command away

What it does

Install

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

npx skills add K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills

# install everything
gh skill install K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills

# or pin a specific version
gh skill install K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --pin v2.45.0

# install only the skills you need
gh skill install K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --skill literature-review

K-Dense Inc. explicitly warns: "Do not install everything at once. Only install the skills you actually need for your work." 8 Each skill can pull in its own Python dependencies; installing all 142 at once significantly increases setup time and token overhead.

Usage examples

Use the literature-review skill to review papers on
transformer-based protein structure prediction published
2022–2025. Output a PRISMA-compliant PDF with Nature citation style.

Use paper-lookup to find all 2024 papers on GLP-1 receptor
agonists in Type 2 diabetes. Cross-reference PubMed and
OpenAlex, then pull open-access PDFs via Unpaywall.

python skills/infographics/scripts/generate_infographic.py \
  "5 benefits of exercise" \
  -o figures/exercise.png \
  --type list \
  --style healthcare \
  --research

Community signals and known caveats

• The "160,000+ scientists" claim is unverifiable. Every search result for that figure traces back to the README itself — no independent source corroborates it. 2
• Issue triage is unstructured. Five open issues as of June 1, none with labels, milestones, or project assignments. Four of them have zero maintainer responses. 11
• A CI security bug is open and unacknowledged. Issue #162 reports that the Trivy security scanner returns exit code 0 even when vulnerabilities exist — a logic flaw in the scan script that can silently miss security findings. 12
• No quantitative benchmarks anywhere. None of the 142 SKILL.md files include before/after performance data. The only timing comparison available is K-Dense's own marketing copy: same drug-repurposing task takes 4–8 hours with the open-source skills vs. ~15 minutes with their paid K-Dense Web platform. 13 That comparison is useful context but comes from the vendor, not an independent test.
• Token overhead can be significant. AcademicForge, a project that imports this library as a dependency, notes that individual skill files run ~420 lines of SKILL.md plus ~300KB of reference material each. Token costs at scale are real.

When NOT to use this

• You need a fully autonomous pipeline. The open-source skills require you to orchestrate every step — K-Dense's own positioning is "you are the orchestration layer." 13 For end-to-end autonomous execution, their paid K-Dense Web tier (multi-agent, cloud GPU, 200+ skills including 60 exclusive ones) is what they actually built for that use case.
• Your domain is outside natural and exact sciences. The library is explicitly weighted toward biology, chemistry, and physics. A GitHub issue requesting social science and musicology support has been open since April with only one assignee and four comments. 11
• You need production-hardened security. The open Trivy false-negative issue means the CI security scan may not catch vulnerabilities. For security-sensitive workflows, verify independently.
• You want community-vetted quality across all 142 skills. Maintenance quality varies. The top-5 most-installed skills (scientific-writing: 608 installs, scientific-critical-thinking: 589, scientific-visualization: 588, scientific-brainstorming: 585, literature-review: 572) 15 have had the most real-world exposure. Skills deeper in the catalog — particularly the specialty categories like proteomics or neuroscience — have had far fewer users, and the lack of GitHub issue feedback means quality gaps may not surface until you run them.