| name | cross-agent-skill-publishing |
| description | Publish SKILL.md for any agent: skills.sh, CLI-first. |
Cross-Agent Skill Publishing
Making a project's capability consumable by ANY AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor,
Codex, Gemini, Hermes, …). Session 2026-08-02, BootKeeper — the user's chosen
standard is skills.sh (Vercel).
The core problem
Skill formats are NOT cross-agent: Claude SKILL.md, Hermes skill, OpenCode differ
in packaging. But every agent can run a CLI. Therefore:
A CLI is the truly agent-agnostic base; SKILL.md is just the instruction
sheet over it.
MCP can be added later as another thin adapter over the SAME CLI — never bake
the AI interface into the core. This is the pattern the user endorsed for
BootKeeper: stable bootkeeper CLI + root SKILL.md; MCP deferred as an adapter.
skills.sh (Vercel) — the standard
vercel-labs/skills (~28k stars). Format = standard SKILL.md, no special header.- Install on any supporting agent:
npx skills add <owner>/<repo>
- Supports 19+ agents incl. nous-research (Hermes), Claude Code, Cursor,
Codex, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Gemini, Cline.
- Badge for README:
[](https://skills.sh/owner/repo)
- Hermes page:
https://skills.sh/agent/nous-research
Placement & structure that works
- SKILL.md at repo root — that's what
npx skills add picks up.
- Self-contained: the agent has zero other context. Include:
- When to use (trigger)
- Every command with examples
- Output format (JSON field names)
- Platform notes (e.g. "must run on Windows, else returns []")
- Agent rules (never fabricate; risk is authoritative; writes not yet available)
Worked example (BootKeeper)
publieople/BootKeeper: root SKILL.md documents bootkeeper list/get/analyze/ snapshot (JSON out). CLI builds cross-platform; SKILL.md documents JSON shapes
an agent parses directly.
Pitfalls
- Don't skip the CLI. A doc-only SKILL.md gives the agent nothing to run —
it would write its own fragile reimplementation each time.
- Don't bake MCP into core. MCP is an adapter; the CLI is the contract.
- Verify install format: if
npx skills add fails frontmatter validation,
fall back to git clone (see hermes-external-skill-install skill).
