ext-skills/docs/related-work.md

Related Work

SEPs and Proposals

Proposal	Venue	Description
SEP-2640 (Skills Extension)	MCP Spec	This WG's proposed extension: skills served over MCP using the Resources primitive and skill:// URI scheme (v1 baseline text)
PR #2527	MCP Spec	Recommend clients expose resource read to models — prerequisite for the resources-based skills approach
skills.json format proposal	MCP Registry	Skills metadata in registry schema
SEP-2093	MCP Spec	Resource Contents Metadata and Capabilities: scoped resources/list, per-resource capabilities, resources/metadata endpoint — rejected (labeled upstream)
SEP-2076	MCP Spec	Agent Skills as a first-class MCP primitive — closed (2026-02-24, without merge)

Working Group Member Implementations

Work by WG leads and active participants that directly implements the group's core patterns: SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter, skill:// resource URIs, and progressive disclosure via MCP primitives.

Implementation	Author	URL	Notes
skilljack-mcp	Ola Hungerford	github.com/olaservo/skilljack-mcp	SKILL.md, skill:// resources, tools, and prompts; progressive disclosure (index→skill→files); file watching for dynamic updates; audience annotations
skills-over-mcp	Keith Groves	github.com/keithagroves/skills-over-mcp	SKILL.md, skill:// resources with progressive disclosure (index→skill→documents); Zod validation against Agent Skills spec
skillsdotnet	Peder HP	github.com/PederHP/skillsdotnet	C# implementation: SKILL.md, skill:// resources, load_skill tool for progressive disclosure, manifest with file hashes; published on NuGet; compatible with FastMCP 3.0

Alternative Approaches

Work by WG members and MCP maintainers that explores skills over MCP through different technical approaches than the core SKILL.md / skill:// pattern.

Implementation	Author	Organization	URL	Notes
skillful-mcp	Kurtis Van Gent	Google Cloud	github.com/kurtisvg/skillful-mcp	Progressive disclosure via 4 lightweight tools (list_skills, use_skill, read_resource, execute_code); wraps downstream MCP servers as skills using mcp.json config rather than SKILL.md; sandboxed code execution via Monty
Astronomer agents	Kaxil Naik	Astronomer	github.com/astronomer/agents	Production skills catalog for Apache Airflow (blueprint, migration, warehouse-init); uses SKILL.md frontmatter but distributed via plugin marketplace rather than MCP resources; demonstrates real-world skills adoption at scale
mcpGraph skill	Bob Dickinson	TeamSpark.ai	github.com/TeamSparkAI/mcpGraph	Declarative YAML-based tool orchestration engine (directed graphs of MCP tool calls); includes SKILL.md files as documentation; explores a complementary "no-code composition" approach to skill authoring

Other Community Implementations

External projects building on skills patterns or integrating skills into frameworks.

Implementation	Author	URL	Notes
FastMCP 3.0 Skills	FastMCP	gofastmcp.com/servers/providers/skills	Native skills provider (#2694)
PydanticAI Skills	PydanticAI	pydantic/pydantic-ai#3780	Agent skills with tools-based approach
mcp-execution	bug-ops	github.com/bug-ops/mcp-execution	Compiles MCP servers into skill packages; --dry-run preview
mcp-cli	philschmid	github.com/philschmid/mcp-cli	Wraps MCP servers as CLI for progressive disclosure
my-cool-proxy	karashiiro	github.com/karashiiro/my-cool-proxy	MCP gateway with skills as resources via Lua scripts; result offloading, session persistence (v1.6.x)
NimbleBrain skills repo	NimbleBrain	github.com/NimbleBrainInc/skills	Monorepo with .skill artifact format
NimbleBrain registry	NimbleBrain	registry.nimbletools.ai	Registry with skill metadata support
NimbleBrain skill:// servers	NimbleBrain	github.com/NimbleBrainInc	skill:// resource colocation examples: mcp-ipinfo, mcp-webfetch, mcp-pdfco, mcp-folk, mcp-brave-search
Kiro powers directory	Kiro	github.com/kirodotdev/powers	Plugin directory bundling skills + MCP servers; active catalog (AWS, GCP migration, SAM, etc.)
mcpkit (ext/skills)	Sri Panyam	github.com/panyam/mcpkit	Go SDK, server + host: SKILL.md, skill:// resources, progressive disclosure (skill://index.json catalog + host load_skill tool); per-supporting-file digests with verified reads, resource-fetch size + per-server byte budget, resources/directory/read; no code-execution surface (enforced by a build-failing test); released in v0.3.0

Related Ecosystem Work

Projects that illustrate the problem space or use adjacent patterns.

Project	Author	URL	Notes
chrome-devtools-mcp	Google (ChromeDevTools)	github.com/ChromeDevTools/chrome-devtools-mcp	Real-world example of the problem: skills/ folder requires separate install path
Strands Agents MCP server	AWS	github.com/strands-agents/mcp-server	Docs-as-MCP: TF-IDF search + doc fetch
AWS MCP server	AWS	docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-mcp/…	retrieve_agent_sop (skills) + call_aws (tool)

Specifications and Standards

• Agent Skills Standard: agentskills.io
• Agent Skills Discovery RFC v0.2.0 (Matt Silverlock / Cloudflare): github.com/cloudflare/agent-skills-discovery-rfc — Domain-level skill discovery using /.well-known/agent-skills/ (RFC 8615). Defines index.json with progressive disclosure, skill-md and archive distribution types, $schema versioning, SHA-256 content integrity, and archive safety requirements. Complementary to MCP-level discovery: .well-known answers "what skills does this domain publish?" while MCP answers "how does the agent consume them at runtime?"
• Skill dependency declaration: agentskills/agentskills#110 — Discusses how skills should declare their tool/server dependencies
• Apache Airflow AIP-91 (MCP integration): cwiki.apache.org/…/AIP-91+-+MCP

Integrity, Content Addressing, and Attestation

Related work on establishing and verifying the integrity, authenticity, and provenance of skill resources.

• skill-set format (draft) (Harry Martin / flocker.md): skill-set.md — Transport-agnostic manifest specification and CLI for named, versioned collections of skills assembled from disparate sources. Defines deterministic whole-skill content hashes and set-level roll-ups, lockfiles, receipt-time content verification, and optional out-of-band URL-fragment pins. Complementary to SEP-2640: provides prior art for deriving a single content address from a complete {uri, digest} resource set and for future whole-skill or multi-skill attestations. See the reference directory for an immutable example.

Background Reading

• Anthropic's guidance on progressive disclosure: Equipping agents for the real world with agent skills
• "MCP and Skills: Why Not Both?" (Kurtis Van Gent): kvg.dev/posts/20260125-skills-and-mcp/ — Frames MCP (connectivity) and Skills (context saturation) as complementary; discusses hybrid approaches
• "Skills Over MCP" (Angie Jones, Agentic AI Foundation): aaif.io/blog/skills-over-mcp/ — "Ship the manual with the product": bundle Agent Skills with MCP servers so agents get both tools and instructional guidance. Describes the working group's proposal (SEP-2640) — skill:// resources, a skill://index.json catalog for lightweight discovery, and progressive disclosure of full instructions on demand
• "Progressive Discovery in MCP, Part 2" (Sam Morrow, GitHub MCP Server maintainer): sam-morrow.com/blog/progressive-discovery-in-mcp-part-2 — Advocates skills-based progressive discovery to solve tool bloat: skill:// resources, deferred tool loading via provider mechanisms (Anthropic tool_reference, OpenAI defer_loading), and the io.modelcontextprotocol/tools metadata namespace. Grounded in lessons from GitHub's MCP Server (100+ tools, 12M weekly calls)
• Conceptual spec visualization (Keith Groves): enact-465fb1fc.mintlify.app/specification/draft/server/skills — "What if" exploration
• llms.txt convention: llmstxt.org — Convention for making documentation LLM-accessible; used by MCPDoc in a way similar to how skills work
• AWS Agent SOPs: docs.aws.amazon.com/…/agent-sops — Pre-built operational workflows as skill-like guidance
• Video background: youtube.com/watch?v=CEvIs9y1uog