shared-skills-registry-access

Shared Skills Registry Access

Overview

Use the configured Shared Skills Registry (SSR) as the first place to look for reusable procedural capability. Search before improvising a duplicate skill, inspect the selected bundle before installation, and verify installation in the consuming agent's own runtime.

This workflow is runtime-neutral. It applies to any MCP-compatible orchestrator or agent that exposes the standard SSR tools. The registry supplies metadata and checksum-bearing bundles; the caller-local adapter decides whether and where files are written.

When to Use

• An agent needs a reusable capability that may already exist in its SSR.
• An orchestrator is selecting capabilities for one or more workers.
• A user asks to inspect, retrieve, or install a shared skill.
• An install request succeeds at the registry layer but the skill is not visible locally.
• A team wants to avoid maintaining divergent copies of the same skill.

Do not use SSR as an arbitrary code-execution channel. A skill may contain instructions or scripts, but retrieval and installation do not grant permission to execute them.

Standard SSR Tools

A compatible registry exposes these MCP operations:

• list_shared_skills — browse visible entries, optionally by category.
• search_shared_skills — find candidates from capability-oriented terms.
• describe_shared_skill — inspect one entry's metadata and applicability.
• retrieve_shared_skill — return SKILL.md and approved support files with checksums.
• install_shared_skill — request a caller-local installation through the configured adapter.

Tool names may be namespaced by the MCP client. Use the locally registered equivalents when a client prefixes server names.

Consumer Agent Branch

Use this branch when installing a capability for the agent running the current task.

1. Confirm SSR access. Verify the five standard tools are available through the configured MCP server.
2. Search by capability. Use terms describing the missing work, not only a guessed skill name. Search multiple related terms when the first query is narrow.
3. Describe before installing. Check applicability, lifecycle status, owner, source, category, install guidance, and whether the capability actually matches the task.
4. Retrieve and inspect. Review the file list, SKILL.md, checksums, references, templates, scripts, and assets. Treat scripts as untrusted until reviewed.
5. Install locally. Call install_shared_skill only after selecting the exact skill. Use the runtime's configured local skills root; never invent or override a destination outside that boundary.
6. Verify runtime visibility. Confirm the installed SKILL.md exists in the expected local skill directory and start a fresh agent session or reload skills if the runtime caches discovery.
7. Report exact state. Distinguish “found,” “retrieved,” “installation authorized,” “written locally,” and “visible to a fresh runtime.”