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Group Type

Working Group

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Mission Statement

The Skills Over MCP Working Group defines how “agent skills” — rich, structured instructions for agent workflows — are discovered, distributed, and consumed through MCP. Native skills support in host applications demonstrates strong demand, and the group emerged from discussion on SEP-2076 — Agent Skills as a First-Class MCP Primitive, which raised open questions about whether existing MCP primitives suffice or what conventions to standardize. The WG produces specification extensions, reference implementations, and coordination artifacts because solutions touch the protocol spec, registry schema, SDK implementations, and client behavior. The WG’s current direction is captured in SEP-2640 — Skills Extension (Resources-based, Extensions Track).

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Scope

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In Scope

  • Specification Work: SEPs defining how skills are represented, discovered, and consumed within MCP — including the Skills Extension (Extensions Track) and related protocol changes
  • Reference Implementations: SDK components and reference servers demonstrating skill discovery and consumption patterns
  • Cross-Cutting Concerns: Coordination with Registry WG (skills discovery/distribution, registry schema changes), Agents WG (skill activation, server metadata consumption), Primitive Grouping WG (progressive disclosure patterns), and external projects including the Agent Skills spec (content format and well-known URI discovery), FastMCP, and PydanticAI
  • Documentation: Specification sections and guidance covering skill authoring, discovery, and consumption

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Out of Scope

  • Registry schema decisions: Schema ownership belongs to the Registry WG; this WG contributes requirements but does not own the schema
  • Client implementation mandates: We can document patterns but not require specific client behavior
  • Plugin/bundle packaging: Installable bundles (skills + servers + subagents + configuration as a single artifact) — surfaced by use cases but belongs to a broader packaging effort
  • Agents WG — How agents consume server metadata, skill activation
  • Registry WG — Skills discovery/distribution, registry schema changes
  • Primitive Grouping WG — Progressive disclosure patterns

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Leadership

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Authority & Decision Rights

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Membership

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Operations

Default start time is 9:00 AM Pacific. Sessions may occasionally be scheduled earlier to better accommodate non-US time zones. Meetings are published at meet.modelcontextprotocol.io. Agendas are posted in advance per MCP meeting policy. Meeting notes are published to Meeting Notes — Skills Over MCP WG. Discord: #skills-over-mcp-wg

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Resources

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Deliverables & Success Metrics

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Active Work Items

Full live tracking is on the Skills Over MCP WG project board. Headline workstreams:

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Success Criteria

  • Short-term: Documented consensus on requirements and evaluation of existing approaches
  • Medium-term: Clear recommendation (convention vs. protocol extension vs. both) — the draft Skills Extension SEP represents the WG’s current direction: a formal extension using existing Resources primitives
  • Long-term: Interoperable skill distribution across MCP servers and clients

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Changelog