Karpathy Skills can be installed in two ways: as a Claude Code plugin that applies the guidelines across all your projects, or as a CLAUDE.md file dropped into a single project. Choose the option that fits your workflow.
The Claude Code plugin applies the guidelines globally — every project you open in Claude Code inherits them. The CLAUDE.md approach applies the guidelines only to the project where the file lives.
Installing as a plugin is the fastest way to get the guidelines running across all your projects without touching individual repositories.Add the marketplace
Inside Claude Code, run:/plugin marketplace add forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills
Install the plugin
/plugin install andrej-karpathy-skills@karpathy-skills
If you prefer to keep the guidelines scoped to a single project, or if you are not using the Claude Code plugin system, you can add the CLAUDE.md file directly.New project
In your project root, run:curl -o CLAUDE.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills/main/CLAUDE.md
CLAUDE.md in the current directory. Existing project (append)
If you already have a CLAUDE.md, append the guidelines rather than overwriting:echo "" >> CLAUDE.md
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills/main/CLAUDE.md >> CLAUDE.md
The guidelines are designed to be merged with project-specific instructions. After appending, you can add a ## Project-Specific Guidelines section below them with any rules unique to your codebase.
Cursor setup
If you use Cursor, the repository includes a committed Cursor project rule that applies the same guidelines. See the Cursor setup guide for instructions on enabling the rule in Cursor and using it across other projects.