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Mirror of https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/ext-skills — MCP Extension for Skills discovery and distribution through MCP primitives. Maintained by the Skills Over MCP Working Group.
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Peter Alexander 71fc13af51
 Update URI scheme proposal to decouple path from skill name (#70) 
Aligns the proposed convention with the draft SEP:

- skill-path is a locator of one or more segments, not the skill name;
  identity lives in SKILL.md frontmatter
- authority component is the first path segment by RFC 3986 mechanics
  but carries no special semantics
- add no-nesting constraint (SKILL.md cannot be ancestor of another)
- resource templates are MAY and primarily user-facing via completion
- enumeration via resources/list is optional; clients must not treat
  an empty list as proof of absence
- add nested-path examples throughout

The survey section is unchanged; it's historical record.
2026-04-15 20:24:30 -07:00
.github Remove core-maintainers from CODEOWNERS per review feedback 2026-02-05 14:50:45 +00:00
docs Update URI scheme proposal to decouple path from skill name (#70) 2026-04-15 20:24:30 -07:00
.gitignore Add .gitignore to exclude local settings file 2026-02-03 20:07:14 -07:00
CONTRIBUTING.md Add decision log with ADR-lite format (#52) 2026-03-12 07:48:01 -07:00
LICENSE Add Creative Commons license for project documentation 2026-02-04 07:33:09 -07:00
README.md Update docs to reflect convention-to-SEP evolution; link to charter (#78) 2026-04-15 10:40:30 +02:00

README.md

Skills Over MCP Interest Group

⚠️ Experimental — This repository is an incubation space for the Skills Over MCP Interest Group. Contents are exploratory and do not represent official MCP specifications or recommendations.

Charter: modelcontextprotocol.io/community/skills-over-mcp/charter — mission, scope, membership, active work items, and success criteria. Project board: Skills Over MCP IG Meeting notes: Skills Over MCP IG discussions Discord: #skills-over-mcp-ig

Why Skills Over MCP?

MCP servers give agents tools, but tools alone are insufficient for complex workflows — tool descriptions tell an agent what a tool does, not how to orchestrate multiple tools to achieve a goal. Skills bridge this gap. They are structured "how-to" knowledge: multi-step workflows, conditional logic, and orchestration instructions that can run to hundreds of lines.

Skills are context, and MCP is a context protocol. Agents already connect to remote services over MCP to get tools — they can get the know-how to use those tools through the same channel. A remote MCP server can serve both its tools and the instructions for using them together, as a single atomic unit. This also enables automatic discovery (connect to a server, find its skills), dynamic updates (server-side changes flow without reinstall), multi-server composition (skills orchestrating tools across servers), and enterprise distribution (RBAC, multi-tenant, version-adaptive content) — all through infrastructure MCP servers already provide.

See why-and-when.md for the full value proposition and a guide for when MCP distribution applies vs. simpler alternatives.

Problem Statement

Native "skills" support in host applications demonstrates demand for rich workflow instructions, but there's no convention for exposing equivalent functionality through MCP primitives. Current limitations include:

  • Server instructions load only at initialization — new or updated skills require re-initializing the server
  • Complex workflows exceed practical instruction size — some skills require hundreds of lines of markdown with references to bundled files
  • No discovery mechanism — users installing MCP servers don't know if there's a corresponding skill they should also install
  • Multi-server orchestration — skills may need to coordinate tools from multiple servers

See problem-statement.md for full details.

Repository Contents

Document Description
Problem Statement Current limitations and gaps
Why Skills Over MCP? Value proposition and decision guide
Use Cases Key use cases driving this work
Approaches Approaches being explored (not mutually exclusive)
Open Questions Unresolved questions with community input
Experimental Findings Results from implementations and testing
Related Work SEPs, implementations, and external resources
Decision Log Record of key decisions with context and rationale

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to participate.