How to Install and Use MiniMax Skills with Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex

Mar 27, 2026

I wanted to use MiniMax Skills to supercharge my AI coding workflow, but I couldn’t find clear instructions for my specific setup. After digging through documentation and experimenting, I got it working across Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

The Problem

MiniMax Skills offers specialized development capabilities—frontend development, shader programming, Flutter apps, PDF generation, and more. But the installation process varies significantly across different AI coding platforms, and the documentation doesn’t make the differences clear enough.

Installation by Platform

Each AI tool has its own skills directory structure. Here’s how to set up MiniMax Skills for each.

Claude Code

The simplest installation experience:

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/skills
claude plugin install minimax-skills

After installation, restart Claude Code to discover the new skills.

Cursor

For Cursor, you need to manually clone and configure:

git clone https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/skills.git ~/.cursor/minimax-skills

Then add the skills path to your Cursor settings:

{
  "ai.skills.paths": [
    "~/.cursor/minimax-skills/skills/"
  ]
}

Restart Cursor to load the skills.

Codex

Codex requires creating the skills directory and symlinking:

git clone https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/skills.git ~/.codex/minimax-skills

mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
ln -s ~/.codex/minimax-skills/skills ~/.agents/skills/minimax-skills

Restart Codex after creating the symlink.

OpenCode

Similar to Codex, OpenCode needs manual setup:

git clone https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/skills.git ~/.minimax-skills

mkdir -p ~/.config/opencode/skills
ln -s ~/.minimax-skills/skills/* ~/.config/opencode/skills/

Environment Setup

Several MiniMax Skills require API access for media generation. I set up my environment variables:

# Required for media generation skills
export MINIMAX_API_KEY="sk-api-your-key-here"

# Choose your API endpoint based on your region
export MINIMAX_API_HOST="https://api.minimax.io"  # Global
# or for China
# export MINIMAX_API_HOST="https://api.minimaxi.com"

I added these to my shell profile for persistence:

echo 'export MINIMAX_API_KEY="sk-api-your-key-here"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo 'export MINIMAX_API_HOST="https://api.minimax.io"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Verifying Installation

I checked that the skills directory contains the expected subdirectories:

ls ~/.cursor/minimax-skills/skills/

# Expected output:
# android-native-dev/
# flutter-dev/
# frontend-dev/
# minimax-multimodal-toolkit/
# minimax-pdf/
# shader-dev/

Some skills include environment verification scripts:

# minimax-multimodal-toolkit
bash scripts/check_environment.sh

# Output:
# ✓ curl installed
# ✓ ffmpeg installed
# ✓ jq installed
# ✓ MINIMAX_API_KEY is set

How Skills Activate

Skills activate automatically when your request matches their trigger conditions. I tested this with different prompts:

Your request                          | Activated skill
--------------------------------------|------------------
"Build a landing page"                | frontend-dev
"Create a PDF report"                 | minimax-pdf
"Generate TTS audio"                  | minimax-multimodal-toolkit
"Write a GLSL shader"                 | shader-dev
"Build a Flutter app"                 | flutter-dev

You can also invoke skills explicitly with slash commands:

/frontend-dev build a landing page for a music streaming app
/shader-dev create a raymarched SDF scene with soft shadows
/minimax-pdf generate a proposal document with 15 cover styles

Common Mistakes I Made

Forgetting to restart the AI tool after installation. The skills won’t appear until you restart.
Missing API key for media generation skills. The minimax-pdf and minimax-multimodal-toolkit skills fail silently without the MINIMAX_API_KEY environment variable.
Wrong skills path in settings. For Cursor, I initially pointed to ~/.cursor/minimax-skills instead of ~/.cursor/minimax-skills/skills/. The settings must point to the skills/ subdirectory.
Using the wrong API host. If you’re in China, use https://api.minimaxi.com. For global users, use https://api.minimax.io.

Keeping Skills Updated

I update my skills regularly to get new features and fixes:

cd ~/.cursor/minimax-skills  # or your install path
git pull origin main

After updating, restart your AI tool to load the latest skill definitions.

Summary

In this post, I showed you how to install MiniMax Skills across Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and OpenCode. Each platform has slightly different requirements—Claude Code has the simplest plugin-based installation, while Cursor, Codex, and OpenCode require manual cloning and path configuration. Once installed, skills activate automatically based on your prompts, giving you specialized development capabilities without changing your existing workflow.

Final Words + More Resources

My intention with this article was to help others share my knowledge and experience. If you want to contact me, you can contact by email: Email me

Here are also the most important links from this article along with some further resources that will help you in this scope:

Oh, and if you found these resources useful, don’t forget to support me by starring the repo on GitHub!