The SkillMD blog
Practical, technical writing on building Agent Skills: the SKILL.md format, cross-agent installs, tooling, and where the registry is going.
Skill packs: shipping an outcome, not just a skill
What a pack is, why official and community packs exist side by side, and when to bundle several narrow skills instead of publishing one big one.
What a verified badge actually means
The registry checks every skill with three separate auditors on one shared verdict scale. Here's what each one looks for and why lint alone isn't the safety review.
How search finds the right skill
Inside the registry's hybrid search: why typos, paraphrases, and vague requests still surface the right skill, and what that means for how you write a description.
Install one skill in every agent you use
Every coding agent keeps skills in its own folder. Here's how to install one with the skillmd CLI, target specific agents, or skip the CLI entirely.
Anatomy of a SKILL.md file
A field guide to the SKILL.md format: the frontmatter fields that get parsed, how lint rules and quality scores work, and the mistakes that quietly tank a score.
Using SkillMD over MCP
Connect an agent to the SkillMD registry over MCP so it can search, inspect, and install skills on its own, no copy-pasting required.
Publishing a skill to the registry
How to take a skill from a local SKILL.md to a listed entry on the registry: login, dry-run, publish, and what happens after you submit.
Debugging skills: lint, scan, and the quality score
How to diagnose a failing or low-scoring skill locally with skillmd lint, rules, and scan before you publish, instead of guessing.
Build your first API-integration skill
A walkthrough for wrapping a public REST API in a SKILL.md file, from scaffolding to lint to publish, with a worked weather-API example.
Common SKILL.md mistakes and how to avoid them
The mistakes skillmd lint catches most often in SKILL.md files, why each one costs points, and the exact fix for each.
The case for an open skill format
As more coding agents ship, the industry needs a shared, plain-text way to define agent skills instead of rebuilding the same capability for every tool.
Cross-platform skills: Claude, Cursor, and beyond
SKILL.md is plain YAML plus Markdown, so one file works across agents. Where each agent stores skills, how to install and test across them.
Writing skills that get used
Principles for authoring a skill people actually install: narrow scope, a precise description, clear steps, explicit inputs and failure handling.