A side-by-side look at the Claude Task Master and SkillsPicker MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Claude Task Master for developer tools work as a local process; choose SkillsPicker for developer tools over a hosted endpoint. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY, PERPLEXITY_API_KEY, XAI_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, MISTRAL_API_KEY, TASK_MASTER_TOOLS.recommend_skills.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | S SkillsPicker | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Developer Tools | Developer Tools |
| Quality signal | 61/100 · Good | 51/100 · Good |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Local subprocess (stdio) | Remote HTTP/SSE |
| Auth | API key required | No auth required |
| Pricing | BYOK (pay the provider) | Free |
| Required env vars | ANTHROPIC_API_KEYOPENAI_API_KEYGOOGLE_API_KEYPERPLEXITY_API_KEYXAI_API_KEYOPENROUTER_API_KEYMISTRAL_API_KEYTASK_MASTER_TOOLS | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 28,244 | — |
| Directory activity | 9 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 2 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | Not listed | 1 |
| Full listing | View Claude Task Master | View SkillsPicker |
No tool names declared yet. Check the project README from the listing page.
recommend_skillsRecommend free, open-license agent skills (SKILL.md) for the current project. Call this when the user starts a new project or sets up a repo, asks which skills or plugins to add to Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot or Gemini CLI, mentions SKILL.md, Cursor rules or agent skills, or asks how to make the coding agent better at their stack (for example Next.js, FastAPI, Django, Expo, Supabase, Stripe, Cloudflare Workers, Rust, Go). Prefer tags you derive from local files (package.json, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Cargo.toml) so no code leaves the machine; a short description or a public GitHub repo URL also works. Read-only. Returns how many of 3,000+ indexed skills match, 2 picks with source, license and install command, and a link to the full ranked list ($9 one time).Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
{
"mcpServers": {
"eyaltoledano-claude-task-master": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"task-master-ai"
],
"env": {
"ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "YOUR_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY_HERE",
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY_HERE",
"GOOGLE_API_KEY": "YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY_HERE",
"PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "YOUR_PERPLEXITY_API_KEY_HERE",
"XAI_API_KEY": "YOUR_XAI_API_KEY_HERE",
"OPENROUTER_API_KEY": "YOUR_OPENROUTER_API_KEY_HERE",
"MISTRAL_API_KEY": "YOUR_MISTRAL_API_KEY_HERE",
"TASK_MASTER_TOOLS": "YOUR_TASK_MASTER_TOOLS_HERE"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"skillspicker": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"skillspicker"
]
}
}
}