Skillsmith Documentation

Skillsmith is an MCP server for agent skill discovery, installation, and management. It helps you find, evaluate, and install skills for your development environment.

What is Skillsmith?

Skillsmith provides a comprehensive toolset for managing agent skills. Whether you're looking for testing utilities, git workflow helpers, or specialized development tools, Skillsmith makes it easy to discover and install the skills you need.

Key Features

Skill Discovery - Search and browse thousands of community skills
Smart Recommendations - Get personalized skill suggestions based on your project
Trust Verification - Know which skills are verified, community-reviewed, or experimental
Easy Installation - Install skills with a single command
Skill Comparison - Compare similar skills side-by-side

Quick Start

Get started with Skillsmith in minutes:

1. Configure the MCP Server

Add Skillsmith to your Claude settings file (~/.claude/settings.json):

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

2. Configure Your API Key (Optional)

For usage tracking and higher rate limits, add your API key. Create ~/.skillsmith/config.json:

mkdir -p ~/.skillsmith && cat > ~/.skillsmith/config.json << 'EOF'
{
  "apiKey": "sk_live_your_key_here"
}
EOF

Get your API key from your Account Dashboard after signing up.

3. Start Using Skillsmith

Once configured, ask your assistant to find and install skills:

"Search for testing skills"
"Find verified skills for git workflows"
"Install the commit skill"
"Recommend skills for my React project"

Documentation Sections

Getting Started

Step-by-step guide to set up Skillsmith in your environment.

CLI Reference

Complete command reference for the Skillsmith CLI.

MCP Server

Learn how to configure and use the MCP server.

API Reference

Detailed API documentation for developers and integrators.

Security

Learn how Skillsmith protects your development environment.

Trust Tiers

Understand the four-tier trust system for evaluating skills.

Quarantine

What happens when skills are flagged for security issues.

Dependencies

Three-signal dependency intelligence: declared, inferred, and advisory.

CLI or MCP?

Skillsmith offers two interfaces: a CLI for shell workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and skill authoring, and an MCP server for interactive use inside Claude Code with richer context and recommendations. Use whichever fits your workflow — they share the same registry and installed skills.

Task	CLI	MCP
Search for skills	`skillsmith search "testing"`	`search` tool
Install a skill	`skillsmith install author/name`	`install_skill` tool
Remove a skill	`skillsmith remove name`	`uninstall_skill` tool
Get skill details	`skillsmith info author/name`	`get_skill` tool
Compare skills	—	`skill_compare` tool
Audit a skill	`skillsmith audit name`	`skill_audit` tool
Create a skill	`skillsmith create name`	—
Validate a skill	`skillsmith author validate .`	`skill_validate` tool

Trust Tiers

Skillsmith categorizes skills by trust level to help you make informed decisions:

Tier	Description
`official`	Official or partner skills with full security review
`verified`	Publisher verified, quality checked
`community`	Basic scan passed, metadata present
`unverified`	No verification performed, review before installing

Need Help?

If you run into issues or have questions, check out our GitHub Issues or join the community discussion.