ext-skills/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

How to Participate

This Working Group welcomes contributions from anyone interested in skills distribution over MCP. You can participate by:

• Joining discussions in the #skills-over-mcp-wg Discord channel (info on joining the Discord server here)
• Opening or commenting on GitHub Discussions in the main MCP repo
• Sharing findings from your own implementations as GitHub issues
• Contributing to documentation and pattern evaluation

Communication Channels

Channel	Purpose	Response Expectation
Discord #skills-over-mcp-wg	Quick questions, coordination, async discussion	Best effort
GitHub Discussions	Meeting notes, long-form technical proposals, experimental findings	Weekly triage
This repository	The specification, decision log, and design rationale	Updated after meetings

Coordination with the Agent Skills Spec

The Agent Skills spec is maintained in the agentskills/agentskills repository. For topics that intersect with both this WG and the Agent Skills spec (e.g., protocol design questions, proposed extensions, or alignment on terminology), the recommended channel is Discussions in that repository.

Before opening a discussion, review the Agent Skills contributing guide.

Meetings

Working Session cadence is defined in the charter; the schedule is published on meet.modelcontextprotocol.io. Meeting requirements — advance notice, agendas, and notes — follow MCP group governance.

Notes are published to Meeting Notes — Skills Over MCP WG. Scheduling surveys and between-meeting coordination happen in #skills-over-mcp-wg.

Decision-Making

Scope and per-decision-type authority are defined in the charter. The decision progression (lazy consensus → formal vote → escalation) follows MCP group governance.

Outputs include:

• SEPs we shepherd from proposal through review (Extensions Track and related protocol changes)
• Reference implementations demonstrating skill discovery and consumption
• Documented requirements, evaluated approaches, and experimental findings

Contribution Guidelines

Sharing Implementation Findings

Findings from implementations are shared as GitHub issues rather than as documents in this repository. The pre-v1 findings and their template are frozen in docs/archive/. When reporting a finding:

• Include enough detail for others to reproduce or evaluate
• Note which clients and servers were tested, and the specification revision
• Be explicit about what worked, what didn't, and what remains untested
• Write "Not documented" for missing details instead of inferring them
• Attribute community input with GitHub handles and link to the source where possible

Community Input

When adding quotes or input from community discussions:

• Attribute to the contributor by name and GitHub handle
• Link to the original source (Discord thread, GitHub comment, etc.) where possible
• Present input as blockquotes to distinguish it from editorial content

Decision Log

Significant decisions made during meetings or through async discussion should be recorded in docs/decisions.md using the ADR-lite format defined there. A decision is worth logging when it:

• Chooses one approach over alternatives
• Sets or changes the group's scope
• Establishes a convention or coordination mechanism

Add a new entry after the meeting where the decision was made or when consensus is reached asynchronously. Include context, the decision itself, rationale, and links to relevant issues, PRs, or discussion threads.

Filing Issues

Use GitHub Issues for:

• Proposing new approaches or use cases
• Reporting gaps in documentation
• Tracking action items from meetings