skillsops 0.1.0b1

SkillsOps — governance CLI for agent skills. Validate, evaluate, optimize, publish, and distribute skills across any IDE.

What kubectl does for Kubernetes, skillctl does for agent skills.

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The problem

Agent skills are spreading fast — code review skills, deployment skills, IaC security skills — but there's no quality gate between "someone wrote a SKILL.md" and "it's running in production." Teams end up with:

• Skills with hardcoded secrets or prompt injection patterns that nobody catches
• No way to answer "does this skill actually help?" with data
• The same skill copy-pasted across Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and Kiro
• Breaking changes that ship without warning or versioning

skillctl is the governance layer. One CLI to validate, evaluate, optimize, publish, and distribute agent skills across any IDE and any runtime.

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Get started in 60 seconds

pip install skillsops

# Create your first skill
skillctl create skill my-org/code-reviewer
# Edit SKILL.md with your instructions, then:

skillctl validate                         # schema + semver check
skillctl eval audit .                     # security scan → A-F grade
skillctl apply                            # push to governed store
skillctl install my-org/code-reviewer@0.1.0 --target all   # deploy to every IDE

That's the full lifecycle: create → validate → audit → publish → distribute.

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Already have skills? Start here

If you already have skills in Claude Code, Cursor, or any IDE — no skill.yaml needed:

# Validate and audit an existing Claude Code skill
skillctl validate ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md
skillctl eval audit ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/

# Install it to other IDEs
skillctl install ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/ --target cursor,windsurf,kiro

# Or install from a URL
skillctl install --from-url https://raw.githubusercontent.com/.../SKILL.md --target all

Add a skillctl: block to your SKILL.md frontmatter for full governance metadata — IDEs ignore it, skillctl reads it:

---
name: code-reviewer
description: Reviews code for security issues
allowed-tools: Read Grep
skillctl:
  namespace: my-org
  version: 1.2.0
  category: security
  tags: [security, code-review]
---

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What skillctl does

Validate and scan

skillctl validate ./my-skill          # schema, semver, capabilities
skillctl eval audit ./my-skill        # security scan → A-F grade

The security scanner checks 9 threat categories (~50 pattern detectors): hardcoded secrets, prompt injection, data exfiltration URLs, unsafe deserialization, encoded payloads, and more. Skills with critical findings are blocked from publishing. Customize with .skilleval.yaml — run skillctl eval init ./my-skill to generate one.

Evaluate with data

skillctl eval init ./my-skill         # generate eval scaffolds + .skilleval.yaml
skillctl eval functional ./my-skill   # runs agent with/without skill, measures difference
skillctl eval trigger ./my-skill      # does the skill activate when it should?
skillctl eval report ./my-skill       # unified score: 40% audit + 40% functional + 20% trigger

Optimize automatically

skillctl optimize ./my-skill --budget 5.0

Iterative loop: evaluate → identify weaknesses via LLM → generate variants → re-evaluate → promote the best. Works with any LLM via LiteLLM.

Publish with governance

skillctl apply ./my-skill             # validate + security scan + push to store

Every mutation is versioned, diffable, and auditable:

skillctl bump --minor                 # 1.0.0 → 1.1.0
skillctl diff my-org/code-reviewer@1.0.0 my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0
skillctl get skills                   # list everything in the store
skillctl describe skill my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0

Install to every IDE

skillctl install my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0 --target all      # auto-detect IDEs
skillctl install my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0 --target cursor    # specific IDE
skillctl install my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0 --target kiro --global  # user-level
skillctl get installations                                     # what's installed where
skillctl uninstall my-org/code-reviewer@1.1.0 --target all     # clean up

Supported targets: Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Kiro. Frontmatter is automatically translated to each IDE's native format.

Export, import, share

skillctl export --namespace my-org    # tar.gz archive of your skills
skillctl import skills-backup.tar.gz  # restore on another machine

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Key features

Feature	What it does
Security scanning	9 threat categories, ~50 pattern detectors, A-F grading
Functional evaluation	With/without-skill baseline comparison via LLM-as-judge
Trigger evaluation	Activation recall and specificity measurement
Automated optimization	LLM-driven iterative improvement loop with budget control
Multi-IDE install	Install governed skills to Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, Kiro
SKILL.md first-class	Works with bare SKILL.md files — no skill.yaml required for local ops
Category taxonomy	12 built-in categories with validation
Content-addressed storage	SHA-256 hashing, integrity verification, structural diffing
Version management	skillctl bump, skillctl diff, breaking change detection
Self-hosted registry	FastAPI + SQLite + FTS5 search, HMAC-signed audit logs
AWS Agent Registry	Native integration via bedrock-agentcore-control API
Claude Code plugin	14 MCP tools + 3 skills for governance inside agentic IDEs
Export/import	Portable skill archives for sharing and backup

How it fits in

Author writes skill
    → skillctl validate        (schema check)
    → skillctl eval audit      (security scan, A-F grade)
    → skillctl eval functional (behavioral testing)
    → skillctl optimize        (automated improvement)
    → skillctl apply           (push to governed store)
    → skillctl install         (distribute to IDEs)
    → Enterprise discovery     (self-hosted registry or AWS Agent Registry)

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Claude Code plugin

skillctl ships a Claude Code plugin in the plugin/ directory. It gives Claude direct access to all skillctl operations via MCP tools.

claude --plugin-dir ./plugin

# 14 MCP tools: validate, apply, list, describe, delete, diff, create,
#   eval_audit, eval_functional, eval_trigger, eval_report,
#   optimize, optimize_history, install
#
# 3 skills: /skillctl:skill-lifecycle, /skillctl:create-skill, /skillctl:diagnose-skill

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Installation

pip install skillsops                  # core CLI (Python 3.10+)
pip install "skillsops[optimize]"      # + optimizer (LiteLLM)
pip install "skillsops[plugin]"        # + MCP server for Claude Code plugin
pip install "skillsops[server]"        # + registry server (FastAPI)
pip install "skillsops[all]"           # everything

Verify your setup:

skillctl doctor                       # checks Python, deps, store, registry, IDE targets

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Documentation

Document	Purpose
docs/REFERENCE.md	Full CLI reference, skill format, registry server, eval suite, optimizer flags, API endpoints
ARCHITECTURE.md	System overview, module map, data flow diagrams
CHANGELOG.md	Version history and release notes

Development

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev,optimize,plugin]"
pytest -m "not integration"           # 530+ unit tests
pytest -m integration                 # 10 real Bedrock tests (needs AWS creds)

License

MPL-2.0