skillz

👌 Use skills in any agent (Codex, Copilot, Cursor, etc...)

⚠️ Experimental proof‑of‑concept. Potentially unsafe. Treat skills like untrusted code and run in sandboxes/containers. Use at your own risk.

Skillz is an MCP server that turns Claude-style skills (SKILL.md plus optional resources) into callable tools for any MCP client. It discovers each skill, exposes the authored instructions and resources, and can run bundled helper scripts.

💡 You can find skills to install at the Skills Supermarket directory.

Quick Start

To run the MCP server in your agent, use the following config (or equivalent):

{
  "skillz": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": ["skillz@latest"]
  }
}

with the skills residing at ~/.skillz

or

{
  "skillz": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": ["skillz@latest", "/path/to/skills/direcotry"]
  }
}

or Docker

You can run Skillz using Docker for isolation. The image is available on Docker Hub at intellectronica/skillz.

To run the Skillz MCP server with your skills directory mounted using Docker, configure your agent as follows:

Replace /path/to/skills with the path to your actual skills directory. Any arguments after intellectronica/skillz in the array are passed directly to the Skillz CLI.

{
  "skillz": {
    "command": "docker",
    "args": [
      "run",
      "-i",
      "--rm",
      "-v",
      "/path/to/skills:/skillz",
      "intellectronica/skillz",
      "/skillz"
    ]
  }
}

Gemini CLI Extension

A Gemini CLI extension is available at intellectronica/gemini-cli-skillz.

Install it with:

gemini extensions install https://github.com/intellectronica/gemini-cli-skillz

This extension enables Anthropic-style Agent Skills in Gemini CLI using the skillz MCP server.

Usage

Skillz looks for skills inside the root directory you provide (defaults to ~/.skillz). Each skill lives in its own folder or zip archive (.zip or .skill) that includes a SKILL.md file with YAML front matter describing the skill. Any other files in the skill become downloadable resources for your agent (scripts, datasets, examples, etc.).

An example directory might look like this:

~/.skillz/
├── summarize-docs/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   ├── summarize.py
│   └── prompts/example.txt
├── translate.zip
├── analyzer.skill
└── web-search/
    └── SKILL.md

When packaging skills as zip archives (.zip or .skill), include the SKILL.md either at the root of the archive or inside a single top-level directory:

translate.zip
├── SKILL.md
└── helpers/
    └── translate.js

data-cleaner.zip
└── data-cleaner/
    ├── SKILL.md
    └── clean.py

Directory Structure: Skillz vs Claude Code

Skillz supports a more flexible skills directory than Claude Code. In addition to a flat layout, you can organize skills in nested subdirectories and include skills packaged as .zip or .skill files (as shown in the examples above).

Claude Code, on the other hand, expects a flat skills directory: every immediate subdirectory is a single skill. Nested directories are not discovered, and .zip or .skill files are not supported.

If you want your skills directory to be compatible with Claude Code (for example, so you can symlink one skills directory between the two tools), you must use the flat layout.

Claude Code–compatible layout:

skills/
├── hello-world/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   └── run.sh
└── summarize-text/
    ├── SKILL.md
    └── run.py

Skillz-only layout examples (not compatible with Claude Code):

skills/
├── text-tools/
│   └── summarize-text/
│       ├── SKILL.md
│       └── run.py
├── image-processing.zip
└── data-analyzer.skill

You can use skillz --list-skills (optionally pointing at another skills root) to verify which skills the server will expose before connecting it to your agent.

CLI Reference

skillz [skills_root] [options]

Flag / Option	Description
positional skills_root	Optional skills directory (defaults to ~/.skillz).
--transport {stdio,http,sse}	Choose the FastMCP transport (default stdio).
--host HOST	Bind address for HTTP/SSE transports.
--port PORT	Port for HTTP/SSE transports.
--path PATH	URL path when using the HTTP transport.
--list-skills	List discovered skills and exit.
--verbose	Emit debug logging to the console.
--log	Mirror verbose logs to /tmp/skillz.log.

---

Made with 🫶 by @intellectronica