Skillsmith

Craft your agent skill workflow.

Skillsmith is a lifecycle manager for agent skills, handling discovery, recommendation, installation, and updates for MCP-compatible AI tools. Find the right skills for your projects, install them safely, and learn to use them effectively.

Features

• Discover - Search skills from GitHub with semantic search
• Recommend - Get personalized skill suggestions based on context
• Install - One-command installation to ~/.claude/skills/
• Validate - Quality scores and structure validation
• Trust - Four trust tiers from Official to Community (Security Guide)
• Compare - Side-by-side skill comparison

MCP Tools

Local-first by design. Skillsmith caches the registry in a local SQLite database at ~/.skillsmith/skills.db, shared across the MCP server, the CLI, and the VS Code extension. Search is FTS5 (SQLite's built-in keyword search) by default; semantic search is opt-in (SKILLSMITH_USE_HNSW=true) and runs over local ONNX embeddings (an open ML model format that runs on CPU — no API call). Inside the Local Skill Database walks through the schema, the FTS5 / HNSW search paths, and how sync keeps the cache fresh.

Architecture

Skillsmith uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP):

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  MCP Client (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.)               │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│  │  Skillsmith MCP Server                          ││
│  │  └── @skillsmith/mcp-server                     ││
│  │      ├── search, get_skill, compare             ││
│  │      ├── install_skill, uninstall_skill         ││
│  │      └── recommend, validate                    ││
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│
│                          │                           │
│                          ▼                           │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│  │  ~/.skillsmith/skills.db (SQLite + FTS5)        ││
│  │  ~/.claude/skills/ (installed skills)           ││
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Installation

Quick Setup (MCP)

Skillsmith is MCP-compatible — pick the snippet for your agent. SMI-4580: snippets sourced from packages/cli/src/templates/mcp-server.template.snippets.ts so this README and the website docs cannot drift.

<details> <summary><strong>Claude Code</strong> — <code>~/.claude/settings.json</code></summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "@skillsmith/mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLSMITH_API_KEY": "sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Code after editing settings.json.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Cursor</strong> — <code>~/.cursor/mcp.json</code></summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "@skillsmith/mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLSMITH_API_KEY": "sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor 2.4+ required. Reload the window after saving.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>GitHub Copilot (VS Code)</strong> — <code>.vscode/mcp.json</code> (workspace)</summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "@skillsmith/mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLSMITH_API_KEY": "sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code 1.108+ required. Workspace-scoped (commit to repo if team-shared, or use user settings.json instead).

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Windsurf</strong> — <code>~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json</code></summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "@skillsmith/mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLSMITH_API_KEY": "${env:SKILLSMITH_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Supports ${env:VAR} interpolation; export SKILLSMITH_API_KEY in your shell instead of inlining the secret.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Codex CLI</strong> — <code>~/.codex/config.toml</code> (TOML, not JSON)</summary>

[mcp_servers.@skillsmith/mcp-server]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"]

[mcp_servers.@skillsmith/mcp-server.env]
SKILLSMITH_API_KEY = "sk_live_..."

Codex reads ~/.agents/skills. When installing via CLI, pass --client agents.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Cross-agent (open standard)</strong> — <code>~/.agents/mcp.json</code></summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "@skillsmith/mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@skillsmith/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SKILLSMITH_API_KEY": "sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Read by any agent honouring the cross-agent skill convention.

</details>

After adding to your MCP client settings and restarting, you can search for skills immediately.

API Key Configuration (Optional)

For higher rate limits and usage tracking, authenticate with your API key.

Easiest — CLI login (interactive):

npm install -g @skillsmith/cli
skillsmith login

This opens skillsmith.app/account/cli-token in your browser. Generate a key, copy it, and paste it when prompted. The key is stored securely in your OS keyring.

MCP server config — add the key to your settings:

The per-client snippets above already include the env.SKILLSMITH_API_KEY slot — replace the sk_live_... placeholder with the value from skillsmith login.

Get your API key at skillsmith.app/account/cli-token.

Note: Never paste API keys in chat. Configure via settings.json only.

CLI Installation (Development)

The CLI is available for local development:

# From the repository root
npm run build
node packages/cli/dist/index.js search "testing"

Usage

Once configured, your MCP client can use Skillsmith tools:

"Search for testing skills"
→ Uses search tool to find testing-related skills

"Show me details for community/jest-helper"
→ Uses get_skill tool to retrieve full skill information

"Install the jest-helper skill"
→ Uses install_skill tool to add it to ~/.claude/skills

"Compare jest-helper and vitest-helper"
→ Uses compare tool to show side-by-side comparison

CLI Usage (Development)

# From the repository, after building
node packages/cli/dist/index.js search "testing" --tier verified --min-score 80
node packages/cli/dist/index.js get community/jest-helper
node packages/cli/dist/index.js install community/jest-helper

Documentation

Public

• Security Guide - Understanding skill trust, safety, and protections
• 5-Minute Setup - Quick start guide
• Configuration Guide - Complete setup and usage

Internal

Internal documentation is in a private submodule at docs/internal/. Access requires repository membership. Run git submodule update --init after cloning.

• Engineering Standards - Code quality policies (requires repository access)
• ADR Index - Architecture Decision Records (requires repository access)
• Security Checklist - Security review guidelines (requires repository access)
• Phase Retrospectives - Phase learnings (requires repository access)

Development

Skillsmith uses Docker-first development. All commands run inside Docker to ensure consistent native module support across all platforms.

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (v24+) or Docker Engine with Docker Compose
• Git (for cloning the repository)
• Node.js (optional, only for local tooling outside Docker)

Quick Start

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/smith-horn/skillsmith.git
cd skillsmith

# 2. Create your local environment file
cp .env.example .env

# 3. Start the development container
docker compose --profile dev up -d

# 4. Install dependencies (first time only)
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm install

# 5. Build and test
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm run build
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm test

Running Commands in Docker

All npm commands should be run inside the Docker container:

Container Management

# Start development container
docker compose --profile dev up -d

# Check container status
docker ps | grep skillsmith

# View container logs
docker logs skillsmith-dev-1

# Stop container
docker compose --profile dev down

# Restart after Dockerfile changes
docker compose --profile dev down
docker compose --profile dev build --no-cache
docker compose --profile dev up -d

After Pulling Changes

When you pull changes that modify package.json or package-lock.json:

docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm install
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm run build

Troubleshooting

#### Container won't start

docker compose --profile dev down
docker volume rm skillsmith_node_modules
docker compose --profile dev up -d
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm install

#### Native module errors (ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED)

Native modules like better-sqlite3 and onnxruntime-node may need rebuilding:

docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm rebuild

#### Tests fail with shared library errors

If you see errors about ld-linux-aarch64.so.1 or similar, ensure you're running inside Docker (not locally):

# Wrong - don't run locally
npm test

# Correct - run in Docker
docker exec skillsmith-dev-1 npm test

Why Docker?

Skillsmith uses native Node.js modules (better-sqlite3, onnxruntime-node) that require glibc. Docker provides a consistent Debian-based environment with glibc, avoiding compatibility issues on systems using musl libc (like Alpine Linux).

For the full technical decision, see ADR-002: Docker with glibc for Native Module Compatibility.

See CLAUDE.md for full development workflow and skill configuration.

Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js 20+ (Docker with glibc)
• Protocol: MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• Database: SQLite with FTS5
• Embeddings: all-MiniLM-L6-v2 via onnxruntime-node
• Testing: Vitest
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions

License

Skillsmith is source-available under the Elastic License 2.0.

You CAN:

• Use Skillsmith for personal or internal business purposes
• Modify the source code for your own use
• Self-host for your team
• Contribute bug fixes and improvements

You CANNOT:

• Offer Skillsmith as a managed service to third parties
• Circumvent license key enforcement features

For the full license text, see the LICENSE file.

Author

Smith Horn Group Ltd

_Skillsmith is not affiliated with Anthropic. Claude and Claude Code are trademarks of Anthropic._