Claude Skill Registry

A lightweight, file-based registry of reusable Claude skills. Each skill is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter. A build script generates a manifest.json that Claude can fetch at runtime to discover and load skills on demand.

How it works

skills/
  <skill-name>/
    SKILL.md       ← frontmatter + instructions
scripts/
  build-manifest.py  ← generates manifest.json
manifest.json      ← auto-generated index of all skills
bootstrap-prompt.md ← paste into a Claude Project to activate the registry

1. Author a skill — create skills/<name>/SKILL.md with valid frontmatter.
2. Build the manifest — run python scripts/build-manifest.py. This writes manifest.json.
3. Wire up Claude — paste the prompt from bootstrap-prompt.md into your Claude Project's system prompt, replacing REPO_OWNER/REPO_NAME.
4. Claude fetches skills at runtime — on each conversation Claude fetches manifest.json, matches the user's request to a skill, then fetches and follows the matching SKILL.md.

The GitHub Action runs build-manifest.py automatically on every push to main and commits the updated manifest if anything changed.

Skill format

Every SKILL.md must start with a YAML frontmatter block:

---
name: skill-name
description: One-line description of what this skill does
version: 1.0.0
triggers: ["keyword1", "keyword2", "example phrase"]
---

# Skill Title

Actual instructions for Claude follow here...

Required frontmatter fields

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Matches the directory name (used as the skill ID)
description	string	One-line summary shown in the manifest
version	semver	e.g. 1.0.0 — increment when instructions change meaningfully
triggers	list	Keywords/phrases that should activate this skill

Adding a skill

mkdir skills/my-new-skill
# create skills/my-new-skill/SKILL.md with frontmatter
python scripts/build-manifest.py   # verify it parses cleanly
git add skills/my-new-skill manifest.json
git commit -m "feat: add my-new-skill"
git push

The CI action will rebuild and commit manifest.json automatically after the push.

Running the build script locally

python scripts/build-manifest.py

The script exits with a non-zero status and prints clear errors if any skill is missing required frontmatter fields.

Repository layout

.github/
  workflows/
    build-manifest.yml   # CI: rebuild manifest on push to main
scripts/
  build-manifest.py      # stdlib only, no external deps
skills/
  example-greeter/
    SKILL.md             # sample skill for end-to-end testing
bootstrap-prompt.md      # ready-to-paste Claude Project system prompt
manifest.json            # auto-generated — do not edit manually
README.md                # this file