SkillForge Chrome Extension — The Complete User Guide

Welcome to SkillForge — your browser-based command center for AI mastery. With over 2,700 curated skills across 19 categories, SkillForge turns any AI tool into an extension of your expertise.

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1. What is SkillForge?

SkillForge is a Chrome extension (Manifest V3) that gives you instant access to a library of 2,700+ curated AI skills — right inside your browser. Instead of switching tabs to find prompts, copying text, and pasting into ChatGPT, you open your sidepanel, pick a skill, and inject it directly.

Key principles:

• Browse, don’t build. Every skill is pre-written, tested, and categorized. No prompt engineering required.
• Context-aware. SkillForge reads your current page (URL, title, selection, body) and weaves it into the prompt automatically.
• Tool-agnostic. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Cursor, AI Studio, and Kimi — 8 supported platforms out of the box, plus any custom AI tool you add.
• Private by design. All skill data, favorites, and history stay in chrome.storage.local. The only network request SkillForge makes is fetching the latest blog post from SynthOperator’s RSS feed.

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2. Installation

Getting started takes under 60 seconds.

From Chrome Web Store

Step	Action
1	Visit the SkillForge page on the Chrome Web Store
2	Click Add to Chrome
3	Review the permissions (storage, sidePanel, activeTab, scripting)
4	Click Add Extension
5	Click the extensions puzzle icon in your toolbar, find SkillForge, and click the pin icon

Keyboard Shortcut

Once installed, press Ctrl+Shift+S (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+S (Mac) to toggle the SkillForge sidepanel instantly.

You can change this shortcut at any time:

• Chrome → chrome://extensions/shortcuts
• Find “SkillForge” → edit the shortcut

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3. Quick Start — Your First Skill

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+S → the SkillForge sidepanel opens on the right side of your browser.
2. Click a category (e.g., “Marketing & Ads”) → you’ll see all available skills in that category.
3. Click any skill → the detail overlay opens with the full prompt, context options (URL, Page Title, and Selected Text pre-checked), and mode selector.
4. Click “Use Skill →” → choose your AI tool → the prompt is injected and ready to use.

That’s it. You just saved 15 minutes of prompt engineering.

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4. The Sidepanel Interface

The sidepanel is organized into five zones:

Zone	What it does
① Context Bar	4 status dots (URL, Title, Sel, Body) — green when data is available, red when empty, grey when unknown. Updates every 1.5s as you browse.
② Search + Create + Import	Real-time search across 2,700+ skills (300ms debounce). ✏ opens the Create overlay for new custom skills. + imports .md skill files from your computer.
③ Filter Pills	All — Every skill. Recent — Skills used in the last 7 days. Favorites — Your starred skills.
④ Category Grid	19 category cards arranged in a 2-column grid. Each card shows an SVG icon, category name, and skill count. A Popular Skills section (top 5 most-used in 30 days) appears when you have usage history.
⑤ Quick Inject + Footer	Textarea for writing custom prompts on the fly. Supports Copy and Inject modes. Footer links: All Skills catalog, SynthOperator homepage, About.

Additional dynamic components not shown in the simplified SVG above:

• Site Banner — Contextual promotions (shown after 3 skill uses, max 1/week)
• Blog Notification — Latest SynthOperator blog post, fetched from RSS, shown once until dismissed
• Resources Section — 4 links: Best Practices Guide, Blog & Updates, Blueprints, Contact
• Custom Skill Invite — Appears after 10 skill uses, linking to SynthOperator.com to order custom skills

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5. The Skill Detail Overlay

When you click any skill card, a detail overlay opens with everything you need:

Every skill detail screen includes:

• Title & Metadata — Skill name with category icon (one of 19 SVG icons), category label, difficulty badge (beginner/intermediate/advanced), and full description.
• ⭐ Favorite Toggle — SVG star icon. Click to add to Favorites for quick access later.
• Context Checkboxes — Choose what page context to include:
  • Page URL — checked by default
  • Page Title — checked by default
  • Selected Text — checked by default (dims grey if nothing is selected)
  • Page Content — unchecked by default (includes full page body up to 10,000 chars when checked)
• Additional Resources — Some skills include reference files, scripts, or templates. Check the ones you want to attach.
• Inject Mode — Toggle between Open AI (⌂ icon, injects directly into an AI tool) and Copy (⎘ icon, copies to clipboard). Each mode has its own SVG icon and color.
• Actions — “Use Skill →” to launch, ⬇ ZIP to download (generated in-browser via Service Worker CRC32), Delete (custom skills only).

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6. Using a Skill — The Full Injection Flow

Here’s exactly what happens when you click “Use Skill →”:

1. The Service Worker receives your request. It loads the skill content from local storage, gathers the context you selected from the current page (via context-gatherer.js), and assembles everything into a complete, ready-to-use prompt.

2. The AI Picker overlay opens — a grid of supported AI tools. Each card shows whether the tool already has an open tab in your browser.

3. You click your tool of choice. A new tab opens at your chosen AI tool’s URL. The Service Worker sends INJECT_PROMPT to injector.js — the content script running on that page.

4. Exponential backoff retry: The injection retries up to 6 times (delays of 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 15s, 15s) to account for the page still loading. Once injected, the prompt appears in the text field, fully assembled with your context included.

5. After a successful injection, a Share overlay appears — you can share your discovery on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), or Bluesky with one click.

If injection fails, a retry bar appears with three options: “Retry” (try the injection again), “Copy prompt” (copy to clipboard), or dismiss.

If you chose “Copy” mode: the prompt is copied directly to your clipboard with a green confirmation toast. Paste it anywhere.

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7. The AI Picker & Custom Targets

Eight AI tools come pre-configured:

AI Tool	URL Pattern	Base URL
Claude	https://claude.ai/*	https://claude.ai/
ChatGPT	https://chatgpt.com/*	https://chatgpt.com/
Gemini	https://gemini.google.com/*	https://gemini.google.com/
Perplexity	https://www.perplexity.ai/*	https://www.perplexity.ai/
DeepSeek	https://chat.deepseek.com/*	https://chat.deepseek.com/
Cursor	https://www.cursor.com/agents/*	https://www.cursor.com/agents
AI Studio	https://aistudio.google.com/*	https://aistudio.google.com/
Kimi	https://kimi.moonshot.cn/*	https://kimi.moonshot.cn/

Open tab detection: If you already have a tab open for one of these tools, a green “open” badge appears — the extension injects directly into the existing tab. Otherwise, a new tab is created.

Adding Custom AI Targets

1. Click ”+ Add” in the AI Picker.
2. Enter a name and URL pattern (e.g., https://chat.mistral.ai/*).
3. Optionally click ”↗ Use current tab” to auto-fill the name and URL from your active tab.
4. The tool appears in your AI Picker alongside the defaults — synced via chrome.storage.local.

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8. Quick Inject Panel

At the bottom of the sidepanel, you’ll find the Quick Inject textarea — a shortcuts for writing and injecting custom prompts without selecting a skill.

• Type any prompt directly into the textarea
• Use variables for dynamic context insertion:

Variable	Resolves to
{{URL}}	Current page URL
{{TITLE}}	Current page title
{{SELECTION}}	Any text you’ve highlighted
{{CONTENT}}	Full page content (up to 4,000 chars)
{{DOMAIN}}	Domain name (e.g., github.com)
{{DATE}}	Today’s date (e.g., 2026-07-29)
{{TIME}}	Current time (e.g., 14:30)

• Click Inject to send the prompt to your chosen AI tool, or Copy to grab it for manual use.
• The mode indicator shows whether you’re in “Open AI” or “Copy” mode.

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9. Themes

SkillForge ships with 8 color themes that change the accent color (--color-accent) across the entire UI. Click the ♨ button in the header to cycle through themes:

Theme	Accent Color	Preview
Neon (default)	#c8ff00	Green-lime glow
Ocean	#60a5fa	Blue
Forest	#34d399	Emerald green
Fire	#fb923c	Orange
Violet	#a78bfa	Purple
Rose	#fb7185	Pink
Sunset	#facc15	Yellow
Ice	#67e8f9	Cyan

Your selected theme persists across sessions via chrome.storage.local.

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10. Favorites & History

SkillForge tracks your usage to help you work faster:

Feature	How it works
Favorites	Click the ⭐ star on any skill’s detail overlay. Filter by “Favorites” to see only your starred skills. Stored locally — never leaves your browser.
History	Every skill use is logged with the skill name and timestamp (up to 200 entries). The “Recent” filter shows skills used in the last 7 days.
Popular Skills	Your top 5 most-used skills in the last 30 days appear in a dedicated section at the top of the category grid.

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11. Importing Custom Skills

You can create and import your own skills from local .md files.

File Format

---
name: "My Custom Skill"
description: "What this skill does"
difficulty: intermediate
audience: developer
keywords: keyword1, keyword2
version: "1.0.0"
last_updated: "2026-07-29"
---

## Instructions

Your skill content here...

Import Steps

1. Click the + button next to the search bar.
2. Select your .md file from your computer.
3. The frontmatter is parsed, and the skill appears in the “Custom” category (always the last category).
4. Custom skills are editable and deletable — look for the “Delete” button in the detail overlay.

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12. Creating Custom Skills

Click the ✏ button next to the search bar to open the Create overlay. Fill out the form:

Field	Description
Name (required)	Title of your skill
Description	One-line summary
Category	Pick from all 19 categories or “Custom”
Difficulty	Beginner, Intermediate (default), or Advanced
Audience	All, Developers, Marketers, Executives, Designers, Analysts
Prompt Content (required)	The full prompt text. Supports {{URL}}, {{TITLE}}, {{SELECTION}}, {{CONTENT}}, {{DOMAIN}}, {{DATE}}, {{TIME}} variables.

Click Create Skill and it appears in your custom skills list immediately. All custom skills are stored locally in chrome.storage.local.

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13. Downloading Skills (ZIP Export)

Every skill can be downloaded as a ZIP archive containing:

• The full SKILL.md file
• All supporting files (references/, scripts/, templates/, images/ if present)

Click ⬇ ZIP in the skill detail overlay to download. The ZIP is generated entirely in your browser by the Service Worker using a hand-written CRC32 implementation — no data is sent to any server.

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14. Blog Notifications

When the sidepanel opens, SkillForge fetches the latest post from SynthOperator’s RSS feed. If there’s a new post you haven’t seen yet, a notification card appears at the top of the sidepanel with the post title and link.

• Dismiss it by clicking ✕ — it won’t reappear for that post.
• The Service Worker caches the blog feed and refreshes it every hour.

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15. Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Escape	Close any open overlay
Enter / Space	Select a skill, toggle a checkbox, or confirm action
Tab	Navigate between interactive elements

Power User Shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift)

These work when the skill list has focus:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+1 through Ctrl+Shift+9	Select skill by position in the list
Ctrl+Shift+↑ / ↓	Navigate between skill cards (outline focus)
Ctrl+Shift+Enter	When detail overlay is open, trigger “Use Skill →“
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy current skill’s prompt directly to clipboard (skips AI Picker)

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16. Pro Tips

1. Use context selectively

You don’t always need full page context. If you just need to analyze a paragraph, select it first — URL, Title, and Selection are checked by default. Only check Page Content when you need the full page body.

2. Combine skills with resources

Many skills include supplementary files (reference CSVs, template scripts). Check these in the detail overlay to attach them to your prompt — they become inline resources the AI can use immediately.

3. Use the Quick Inject for ad-hoc prompts

Don’t want to create a full skill? Just type directly in the Quick Inject textarea at the bottom and use {{SELECTION}} to reference whatever you’ve selected on the page.

4. Use Copy mode for drafts

If you’re not ready to inject directly, switch to Copy mode — the prompt lands in your clipboard with a green toast. Paste it anywhere, anytime.

5. Switch themes

Click the ♨ button in the header to cycle through 8 color themes. Your choice is saved automatically.

6. Keyboard navigation

Once you’ve used SkillForge for a few days, learn the Power User shortcuts. Ctrl+Shift+S → type a keyword → Ctrl+Shift+↓ to navigate → Ctrl+Shift+Enter to use — all without touching your mouse.

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17. Privacy & Data

Concern	How SkillForge handles it
Skill storage	All 2,700+ skills, favorites, history, and custom imports are stored locally in chrome.storage.local. No skill data is sent to any server.
Context gathering	The extension reads your page URL, title, text selection, and body content — only when you click “Use Skill” or “Inject”. This data is used to build one prompt and is never stored or transmitted.
Network requests	SkillForge makes two types of network request: (1) fetching the SynthOperator RSS feed (/rss.xml) to show blog notifications, (2) loading skill files from the extension’s own packaged directory. No analytics, no telemetry, no tracking servers.
External links	Links to SynthOperator.com use utm_* query parameters for analytics attribution — standard practice for open-source projects. These are regular hyperlinks, not tracking pixels.
Google API compliance	The extension adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Permission transparency	All permissions (storage, sidePanel, activeTab, scripting) are declared in the manifest and used strictly for the extension’s core functionality.

Your data stays yours. SkillForge is designed with a local-first architecture. When you close the sidepanel, every byte of your browsing context stays exactly where it belongs — on your machine.

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SkillForge v2.1.0 — Manifest V3 — SynthOperator