dsh-skills-anywhere

Discover and load skills across your tools. Collect Agent Skills
from local directories and configured Git sources into one catalog, available
through a live DeepSeek Harness
(dsh) provider or a local stdio MCP server.

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Try the interactive Hugging Face playground — explore an example workspace, resolve name clashes, and search beyond the catalog budget. No installation or model API needed. How it works.

Inspect skill instructions, compare directory manifests and share catalog views.
Keyboard navigation preserves the selected row and catalog settings. Files
opened for local review stay in the browser.

Bring your own SKILL.md. Compare the provider's strict and lenient parsing
locally: inspect repairs, invocation settings and a downloadable check report.
Your file stays in the browser. The same checks are available in the
command line and CI, with file hashes and actionable exit codes.
Reports enumerate recognized source URLs, full-commit address forms and
author-declared tools. Referenced content, script behavior and client
compatibility require separate verification.

Listed in community directories: Awesome DeepSeek Harness · Awesome Gemini CLI. Publication record.

Clients can use different project, user and plugin directories for SKILL.md
files. Skills Anywhere discovers configured sources in place and makes the
resulting catalog available through dsh or an MCP client configured to connect
to its local server. Directory definitions describe discovery paths; the
compatibility matrix records tested protocol
connections separately.

Inside dsh, it registers one extra provider on the built-in ctx.skills registry, so the model's normal skill tool and /name invocation simply see more skills:

• Predefined agent directories. Project and user paths for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Kiro, Goose and other entries in the directory registry.
• Claude Code plugin marketplaces. The skills nested inside ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/*/plugins/*/skills/*, including the official Anthropic marketplace.
• Configured Git sources. Select a skill repository, subdirectory, branch, tag or commit. The provider maintains a local checkout and records its resolved commit in a lock file.
• Local files read in place. Existing skills are re-read when loaded, without copying them into each client's directory. Git sources use the managed cache described below.

Hundreds of skills would bloat every model request, so the provider keeps a catalog budget: at most 50 skills enter the model's session catalog by default, and the rest stay one find_skills call away through two small tools the plugin adds, with /name invocation untouched.

The same pool is available outside dsh through dsh-skills-anywhere mcp.
Configured MCP clients can discover and open
skills through tools and skill:// resources. Client support for tool calls,
resources and the skill's own instructions determines the available workflow.

The provider deduplicates symlinked and byte-identical entries, supports
documented frontmatter repairs, and renames conflicting names such as
discord/configure and telegram/configure. The CLI reports the published
catalog, skipped entries and the reason for each change.

Inspect skill delivery

Successful MCP open_skill calls return a receipt identifying the delivered
instruction body, original SKILL.md and optional bundle. Attach it to a tool
span to review delivered versions alongside task results. The receipt records
delivery; instruction following and permission enforcement are separate checks.
Receipt contract ·
EvalArc Trace Workbench.

Example: review robot evidence

Load a Microduck frame-review skill through MCP, then have your agent verify
its recorded joint facts with Robot Reel before writing a review.
Interactive skill example
(select 04 Review robot evidence) · Local walkthrough ·
Reusable skill.
The browser shows the instructions; your agent's own execution tool runs the
read-only verifier. No new simulation or GPU is needed.

Review once, load the same file

MCP open_skill returns the original file's SHA-256. Supply
expected_sha256 from check --json or an earlier open to reject a changed
SKILL.md before its instructions are returned. Fresh author opt-outs apply
immediately, even while discovery is cached. Exact-file workflow.

MCP protocol support: the local stdio command negotiates legacy initialization
and the 2026-07-28 protocol opening. Four SDK configurations and the installed
npm archive are checked over real subprocess connections.
Compatibility matrix and embedding migration.

Review the whole skill directory. Generate a file manifest with
bundle /path/to/skill --json, compare added/removed/changed resources, and
require expected_bundle_sha256 when opening through MCP. The
interactive bundle comparison
shows a script change behind unchanged instructions and compares your own
manifests locally. Directory review and limits.

Quick start

# 1. Install into the dsh profile you use (web is the default UI profile)
dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-skills-anywhere

# 2. See what the model will get, without booting dsh
npx dsh-skills-anywhere list

# 3. Add a whole repository of skills
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add anthropics/skills

Published on npm with build provenance; every GitHub release also carries the same tarball.

Start dsh as usual. The skill catalog now includes everything above; load a skill with the skill tool or /skill-name exactly as before.

Example discovery output is shown below. Paths and counts depend on the local
installation and configured sources:

$ npx dsh-skills-anywhere list
NAME                 FROM                                                    PATH
discord-access       claude plugin discord @ claude-plugins-official         ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/.../discord/skills/access/SKILL.md
frontend-design      claude plugin frontend-design @ claude-plugins-official ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/.../frontend-design/skills/frontend-design/SKILL.md
skill-creator        claude plugin skill-creator @ claude-plugins-official   ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/.../skill-creator/skills/skill-creator/SKILL.md
...
31 skills, 6 renamed — run `dsh-skills-anywhere doctor` for details

Install from a git checkout or a release tarball instead of npm

Every GitHub release carries a prebuilt tarball, and both dsh plugin add and npx accept its URL directly (https://github.com/noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere/releases/download/v0.12.0/dsh-skills-anywhere-0.12.0.tgz). If you want an unreleased commit:

dsh plugin --profile web add github:noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere

A git install ships sources, so pnpm has to run this package's prepare build. pnpm 10+ refuses until you allow it: the first add fails and prints the exact key to allow. Copy that key (it includes the commit) into the profile's pnpm-workspace.yaml and run the add again.

# $DSH_HOME/profiles/web/pnpm-workspace.yaml
allowBuilds:
  'dsh-skills-anywhere@https://codeload.github.com/noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere/tar.gz/<sha>': true

Pin a commit (github:noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere#<sha>) if you want the install to be reproducible.

Requirements

• DeepSeek Harness 0.1.5-rc.1 or newer (the suite runs against 0.1.5-rc.1 and 0.1.5-rc.2), any profile that mounts @deepseek-ai/dsh-skill (the shipped web, acp, headless and sdk profiles all do)
• Node.js 22.19+ or 24+
• git on PATH for git sources (everything else works without it)

What gets discovered

Where	Example	dsh source label	Default rank
Another agent's project skills	<project>/.claude/skills/*	anywhere-project	250
Another agent's user skills	~/.codex/skills/*, ~/.cursor/skills/*	anywhere-user	550
Claude Code plugin marketplaces and the installed-plugin cache	~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/*/plugins/*/skills/*	anywhere-claude-plugins	580
Git sources	anthropics/skills, vercel-labs/agent-skills/skills	anywhere-source	700

Lower rank wins a duplicate name inside the dsh registry. The built-in dsh roots
keep their ranks (.dsh/skills 100, .agents/skills 200, ~/.dsh/skills 400,
~/.agents/skills 500). Precedence follows these values across sources; for
example, an agent's project entry at rank 250 precedes a dsh user entry at 400.
The built-in .agents/skills and .dsh/skills roots are not scanned again.

Run npx dsh-skills-anywhere agents for the full agent table and which directories exist on your machine.

Skill format

Any directory with a SKILL.md following the Agent Skills specification, plus dsh's flat <name>.md form. name, description, license, compatibility, allowed-tools, metadata, and dsh's disable-model-invocation / user-invocable are all understood. Unknown frontmatter (Claude Code's argument-hint, context, ...) is preserved under metadata.frontmatter. scripts/, references/ and assets/ are exposed through the skill's resource directory like any dsh skill.

In the default lenient mode a missing name falls back to the directory, an invalid name is normalised to kebab-case, and a missing description is derived from the first paragraph. Each repair is recorded and shown by doctor. Set lenient: false to match the strict behaviour of the built-in provider.

Git sources

npx dsh-skills-anywhere add anthropics/skills                      # default branch
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add anthropics/[email protected]               # tag or branch
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add vercel-labs/agent-skills/skills        # sub-directory
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add https://github.com/o/r/tree/main/dir   # GitHub tree URL
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add [email protected]:group/skills.git        # any git URL
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add ./local/skills-repo --project          # local repo, project-scoped
npx dsh-skills-anywhere add o/r --ref 3f2a9c1 --rank 300           # pin a commit, set precedence

Sources come from three places, merged in this order: the plugin config.sources, the user file ~/.dsh/skills-anywhere/sources.json, and the project file <project>/.dsh/skills-anywhere.json (commit it to share skills with your team). The CLI edits the last two.

Each repository uses a local checkout at
~/.dsh/skills-anywhere/cache/<host>/<owner>/<repo> (<repo>@<ref> when a
branch, tag or commit is set). Background synchronization runs at startup,
every syncIntervalMs (6 hours by default), and when source configuration changes.
Resolved commits are recorded in ~/.dsh/skills-anywhere/lock.json.
Discovery reads the available cache. A failed refresh retains an existing
checkout; a source that has never synchronized contributes no cached skills.
Successful changes invalidate the catalog without making discovery wait for
network synchronization.

Catalog budget and the find_skills / open_skill tools

dsh publishes every model-invocable skill's name and description into the session, on every request. With marketplaces and a few git sources that is hundreds of lines of context. The provider therefore ranks its skills and marks only the first catalog.limit (default 50) as model-invocable; the remainder is published with model invocation off, which keeps it out of the catalog but still loadable by you with /name.

Two tools, registered by the dsh-skills-anywhere/tools row, make the hidden part reachable for the model:

• find_skills(query, limit?) searches every skill by keyword (name, description, whenToUse, origin), catalog or not, and says which matches are listed.
• open_skill(name) loads any skill by exact name, including ones the budget hid. Skills whose own frontmatter says disable-model-invocation: true are still refused, exactly as the built-in skill tool does.

- id: skills-anywhere
  config:
    catalog:
      limit: 30                       # 0 = unlimited (old behaviour)
      pin: [frontend-design]          # always listed
      hide: [example-skill]           # never listed, still searchable and /name-invocable
- id: skills-anywhere-tools
  config:
    findLimit: 10

Author-disabled skills never count against the budget. Which skills stay listed follows the precedence order below, so project-level skills win over user-level, which win over marketplaces and git sources. The tools row needs the tool runtime (ctx.tools); in a profile without one it stays pending and the provider works alone.

CLI

Check before committing. Run npx -y [email protected] check skills/example/SKILL.md --fail-on-repair. The same parser used in the playground
provides batch file checks, JSON reports with file hashes, and CI exit codes.
Checks read only the named files. Commands, CI example and scope.

dsh-skills-anywhere list [--all] [--json]     Skills the provider publishes (--all shows hidden duplicates)
dsh-skills-anywhere agents [--json]           Agent directory definitions and paths found here
dsh-skills-anywhere sources [--json]          Configured git sources and their synced commits
dsh-skills-anywhere add <source> [--ref] [--path] [--rank] [--project]
dsh-skills-anywhere remove <source> [--project]
dsh-skills-anywhere sync [--force] [--json]   Clone or refresh every source now
dsh-skills-anywhere doctor [--json]           Repaired, skipped, renamed and duplicate skills, with reasons
dsh-skills-anywhere check <files...> [--json] Explicit local files; strict parser gate by default
dsh-skills-anywhere mcp                       Serve skills to configured clients over stdio MCP

All commands accept --cwd <dir>. For check, it resolves the named files; other
commands use it to pick the project. check --lenient accepts provider repairs;
--fail-on-repair rejects any reported repair in the selected mode.
The CLI uses the same parsing code as the plugin and never needs dsh running.

Use as an MCP server

dsh-skills-anywhere mcp starts a local
Model Context Protocol server over stdio.
It exposes the same configured sources, deduplication and naming rules through
the following tools. Connect a compatible client using its MCP configuration:

Tool	What it does
list_skills	Browse every model-invocable skill with its description and origin (limit, offset)
find_skills	Keyword search across names, descriptions and origins
open_skill	Load one skill's instructions plus the directory its scripts and references live in

Skills are also exposed as skill://<name> resources (with completion), for clients that let you @-mention resources. Skills whose frontmatter sets disable-model-invocation: true are never listed or opened. The server needs no dsh installation at all.

Claude Code (as a plugin; this repo doubles as a plugin marketplace)

claude plugin marketplace add noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere
claude plugin install dsh-skills-anywhere@noteflowai

Or register the bare server instead: claude mcp add skills-anywhere -- npx -y dsh-skills-anywhere mcp. Either way, restart Claude Code once so it connects.

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{ "mcpServers": { "skills-anywhere": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "dsh-skills-anywhere", "mcp"] } } }

Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)

[mcp_servers.skills-anywhere]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "dsh-skills-anywhere", "mcp"]

The server is also listed in the official MCP registry as io.github.noteflowai/dsh-skills-anywhere, so registry-aware clients can install it by name. The repository is also an Agent Plugin (plugin.json + mcp.json at the root), so Cursor and other open-plugin clients can install it from the repository URL. Add --cwd <dir> when the client does not start the server inside the project you are working on. Git sources sync in the background on start, exactly as in dsh. Programmatic use: import { createSkillsAnywhereServer } from 'dsh-skills-anywhere/mcp' returns the McpServer and the provider so you can attach your own transport.

Browse and toggle skills in the dsh web UI

In dsh web, open Settings → Plugins → Plugin configuration. The Skills Anywhere card lists every skill the provider found, grouped by where it lives (agent directories, Claude Code plugins, git sources), with its catalog state — listed for the model, not listed (kept out by the budget or by you) or author disabled — and the name it was renamed to when it collided. Each row offers Pin (always listed), Hide (out of the model catalog, still /name- and find_skills-reachable) and Exclude (dropped from the provider); the catalog budget is editable in place, and a filter box searches names, descriptions and origins.

Edits are written to the profile's dsh settings document as the skills-anywhere namespace, layered over catalog and excludeSkills from cordis.patch.yml, and the model catalog follows immediately: no restart, no file editing. The card only appears in profiles that mount dsh's settings service and web server (the shipped web profile does); everywhere else the provider behaves exactly as composed.

Configuration

Override the row in your profile's cordis.patch.yml. A patch replaces the whole config block, so restate every key you care about:

- id: skills-anywhere
  config:
    agents: true
    excludeAgents: [openclaw]
    claudePlugins: true
    sources:
      - anthropics/skills
      - { repo: vercel-labs/agent-skills, path: skills, ref: main, rank: 650 }
    excludeSkills: [example-skill]

Field	Default	Meaning
providerName	skills-anywhere	Provider name on ctx.skills
agents	true	Scan other agents' skill directories
excludeAgents	[]	Agent ids to skip (see agents command)
extraProjectDirs	[]	Additional project-relative skill directories
extraUserDirs	[]	Additional absolute or ~/ skill directories
claudePlugins	true	Scan Claude Code plugin marketplaces and cache
sources	[]	Git sources: strings or { repo, ref?, path?, rank? }
sourcesFiles	true	Also read the user and project sources.json files
cacheDir	~/.dsh/skills-anywhere/cache	Where sources are checked out
sync	true	Clone and refresh git sources at all
syncOnStart	true	Refresh when the plugin starts and on first use of a project
syncIntervalMs	21600000	Background refresh interval; 0 disables
syncTimeoutMs	120000	Per-git-command timeout
maxDepth	5	Directory depth walked inside sources and marketplaces
dedupe	true	Collapse symlinked and byte-identical duplicates
lenient	true	Repair recoverable frontmatter instead of skipping
watch	true	Watch local roots and refresh the catalog on change
excludeSkills	[]	Skill names to hide (raw frontmatter name or the published name shown by list); editable at runtime from the web card
ranks	{ project: 250, user: 550, claudePlugins: 580, sources: 700 }	Precedence per group
catalog.limit	50	Skills from this provider listed in the model catalog; 0 = unlimited
catalog.pin	[]	Names always listed
catalog.hide	[]	Names never listed (still /name-invocable and searchable)
dshHome, home	$DSH_HOME / ~	Path roots, mainly for tests

The dsh-skills-anywhere/tools row accepts findLimit (default 10), findMaxLimit (50), and find / open booleans to register only one tool.

How precedence and duplicates work

1. Roots are scanned in rank order. Within one rank, the agent table order, then path.
2. Entries pointing at the same file (symlinks) collapse to the first. Entries with the same name and byte-identical body collapse to the first. Both appear in doctor as hidden duplicates.
3. Entries that still share a name but differ are all kept. If one of them is yours (an agent directory) it keeps the bare name and the others are prefixed with their plugin, repository, or agent (telegram-configure). If every member comes from a marketplace or a git source, all of them are prefixed, so you get discord-access and telegram-access rather than a meaningless bare access. doctor lists the renames.
4. The dsh registry then merges this provider's candidates with the built-in ones by rank.

Recorded research examples

Inspect 27 GPU trials
comparing no skill, direct delivery and MCP delivery, with independent task
grading and all failures retained. Separate composition and session-handoff
pilots are described in the research guide.
These small experiments examine delivery and task outcomes; they do not
establish a general accuracy or memory benefit.

Security notes

• The plugin reads skill files. It never writes to your agent directories.
• Git sources run git on your machine at plugin start and on the refresh interval. Pin a commit for anything you do not fully trust, and review lock.json.
• A skill is instructions the model will follow. Adding a source is a trust decision, exactly like installing a plugin.
• Skills are read with Node's filesystem API, not through dsh's sandboxed ctx.fs; the built-in provider does the same for its bundled root.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm run check        # typecheck + lint + tests + build
pnpm pack             # tarball for `dsh plugin --profile <name> add ./dsh-skills-anywhere-*.tgz`

Tests run against the real @deepseek-ai/dsh-skill registry and real git repositories in temp directories.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Adding an agent is a one-line change in src/agents.ts. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT © Note Flow AI