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Skill registry — community skill import + discovery

Goal

SwarmKit users should find and install pre-built skills from the community instead of writing everything from scratch. The ecosystem has converged on two standards — both should be importable.

Don't reinvent skills — import the ecosystem.

Landscape (as of April 2026)

Two dominant formats:

Agent Skills (SKILL.md)

  • Spec: agentskills.io (Apache-2.0)
  • Format: YAML frontmatter + markdown body
  • Supported by: 27+ agents (Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf)
  • Available skills: 1,100+ cataloged (VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills)
  • Key repos:
  • github.com/anthropics/skills (123K stars) — official Anthropic skills for document creation, development, testing
  • github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills — React, Next.js, deployment
  • github.com/google/skills — 13 Google Cloud product skills

SKILL.md format:

---
name: lowercase-kebab-name
description: What it does
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: org-name
  version: "1.0"
---

# Instructions in Markdown

Progressive disclosure: ~100 tokens metadata at startup,
<5000 tokens body on activation, reference files on demand.

Conversion to SwarmKit: near-trivial — YAML frontmatter with kebab-case IDs maps to SwarmKit's skill schema. The markdown body becomes the skill's instruction content.

MCP servers

  • Protocol: JSON-RPC over stdio/SSE
  • Available: 7,260+ servers cataloged (TensorBlock)
  • Key repos:
  • github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers (84K stars) — official reference servers (filesystem, git, fetch, memory)
  • Covers: databases, cloud platforms, APIs, search, communication
  • SwarmKit support: already designed (§18). MCP tools are the implementation backend for capability skills.

Other pools

Source Count Format SwarmKit path
LangChain tools 600+ Python classes Runtime bridge (we compile to LangGraph)
Composio 1,000+ OpenAPI specs Via Composio's MCP server
CrewAI tools 60+ Python classes Wrap as skill implementation
OpenAI GPT Actions 34 OpenAPI specs Parse spec → skill YAML

SwarmKit skill registry architecture

Three-layer model

Community sources (remote)
  ├── Agent Skills repos (SKILL.md)
  ├── MCP server catalogs
  └── SwarmKit-native repos

         ↓ swarmkit skill import / install

Local registry (bundled with swarmkit-runtime)
  └── reference/skills/        ← 20+ pre-imported skills

         ↓ swarmkit skill install <name>

Workspace skills/
  └── skills/<name>.yaml       ← workspace-local, validated

CLI commands

# Install from the local registry into the workspace
swarmkit skill install code-quality-review

# Import from a remote Agent Skills repo
swarmkit skill import github.com/anthropics/skills/create-docx

# Import an MCP server as a skill source
swarmkit skill import-mcp github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/filesystem

# Search available skills (local registry + remote catalogs)
swarmkit skill search "security"

# List installed skills in the workspace
swarmkit skill list

# List all available skills in the registry
swarmkit skill list --available

SKILL.md → SwarmKit YAML converter

Input: SKILL.md
  ---
  name: code-quality-review
  description: Reviews code for quality issues
  metadata:
    author: anthropic
    version: "1.0"
  ---
  # Instructions...

Output: SwarmKit skill YAML
  apiVersion: swarmkit/v1
  kind: Skill
  metadata:
    id: code-quality-review
    name: Code Quality Review
    description: Reviews code for quality issues
  category: capability
  implementation:
    type: instruction
    content: |
      # Instructions...
  provenance:
    authored_by: community
    source: github.com/anthropics/skills/code-quality-review
    version: 1.0.0

The converter: 1. Parses YAML frontmatter → metadata block 2. Maps name → id (already kebab-case) 3. Infers category from content (or defaults to capability) 4. Preserves markdown body as implementation.content 5. Adds provenance.source tracking the origin repo 6. Validates against SwarmKit's skill schema

Authoring AI integration

When the authoring AI is creating a workspace:

  1. Search first. Before generating a new skill, search the registry: "I need a code quality review skill" → finds existing one
  2. Install existing. If a match exists, propose installing it instead of generating
  3. Generate only gaps. If no match, generate a new skill (current behavior)
  4. Cite sources. When using a community skill, tell the user where it came from

The authoring AI's system prompt includes a catalog summary (skill names + descriptions from the registry) so it knows what's available without searching every time.

Seed skills (initial registry, 20+)

Drawn from existing community repos:

Capability skills: - file-read — read file contents (from MCP filesystem server) - file-write — write file contents - web-fetch — fetch URL content (from MCP fetch server) - web-search — search the web - git-diff — read git diff (from MCP git server) - git-log — read git history - github-pr-read — read pull request details - github-issue-read — read issue details - database-query — execute SQL query - code-execute — run code in a sandbox

Decision skills: - code-quality-review — code quality assessment (pass/fail + reasoning) - security-vulnerability-scan — security check (severity + description) - content-moderation — content safety check - schema-validation — validate data against a schema

Coordination skills: - coordinate-workers — leader-mediated worker collaboration

Persistence skills: - audit-log-write — append to audit log - knowledge-base-update — update shared knowledge - review-queue-submit — submit item for human review

Domain-specific (from Google/Anthropic repos): - create-docx — generate Word documents - create-pdf — generate PDF documents - bigquery-query — BigQuery SQL execution

Implementation plan

  1. Task #44: Design note (this document) ✓
  2. Task #45: SKILL.md → SwarmKit YAML converter
  3. Task #46: Seed 20+ skills from community repos
  4. Task #47: swarmkit skill install/search/list CLI
  5. Follow-up: Wire authoring AI to search registry before generating

Non-goals (for now)

  • Publishing skills back to community repos. Import only for v1.0; publishing is M7+ (Skill Authoring Swarm).
  • Skill marketplace / rating system. Community skills are trusted by source (Anthropic, Google, MCP official). No rating system needed for v1.0.
  • Automatic skill updates. Version pinning via provenance.version; updates are manual (swarmkit skill update <name>).