Managing skills

The Registry Server provides API endpoints for managing skills — reusable instruction sets for AI coding agents. You can publish skills to your registry, search for existing skills, and manage their lifecycle.

Skills endpoints are available under the extension path /{registryName}/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills. All endpoints require authentication unless the registry is configured in anonymous mode.

Managed registry required for write operations

Publishing and deleting skills requires a managed registry. Read operations (list, get) work with all registry types.

List skills

Retrieve all skills from a registry, with optional filtering and pagination.

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

Query parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
search	string	-	Filter by name or description substring
status	string	-	Filter by status (comma-separated, e.g. active,deprecated)
limit	integer	50	Maximum results per page (max 100)
cursor	string	-	Pagination cursor from a previous response

The response includes a metadata object with count (total matching skills) and nextCursor (for pagination).

Example: search for skills

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills?search=lint&status=active" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

Get a skill

Retrieve the latest version of a specific skill by namespace and name.

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills/NAMESPACE/SKILL_NAME" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

For example, to get the latest version of a skill named lint-fix in the io.github.user namespace:

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/my-registry/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills/io.github.user/lint-fix" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

List skill versions

Retrieve all published versions of a skill.

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills/NAMESPACE/SKILL_NAME/versions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

Get a specific version

Retrieve a specific version of a skill.

curl -s "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills/NAMESPACE/SKILL_NAME/versions/VERSION" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" | jq

Publish a skill

Publish a new skill version to a managed registry. The request body is a JSON object containing the skill metadata.

curl -X POST "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "namespace": "io.github.user",
    "name": "lint-fix",
    "title": "Lint Fixer",
    "description": "Find and fix linting errors in a project",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "status": "active",
    "license": "Apache-2.0",
    "allowedTools": ["Read", "Edit", "Bash", "Grep"],
    "packages": [
      {
        "registryType": "oci",
        "identifier": "ghcr.io/user/skills/lint-fix",
        "ref": "1.0.0",
        "digest": "sha256:abc123..."
      }
    ],
    "repository": {
      "type": "git",
      "url": "https://github.com/user/my-skills"
    }
  }'

A successful publish returns a 201 Created response.

Skill fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
namespace	string	Yes	Reverse-DNS owner identifier (e.g. io.github.user)
name	string	Yes	Skill identifier (lowercase alphanumeric and hyphens)
version	string	Yes	Semantic version or commit hash
title	string	No	Human-readable display name
description	string	No	Summary of what the skill does
status	string	No	active (default), deprecated, or archived
license	string	No	SPDX license identifier
compatibility	string	No	Environment requirements
allowedTools	string[]	No	Tools the skill needs (experimental)
packages	array	No	Distribution references (see Packages below)
repository	object	No	Source repository (type and url)
icons	array	No	Icon references (src, type, size, label)
metadata	object	No	Skill metadata from the SKILL.md frontmatter
_meta	object	No	Opaque extended metadata

Packages

Each package entry describes where the skill artifact is distributed.

Field	Type	Description
registryType	string	Distribution type: oci or git
identifier	string	OCI identifier (e.g. ghcr.io/user/skills/name)
ref	string	Tag or branch reference
url	string	Direct URL to the package
commit	string	Git commit SHA
subfolder	string	Subfolder within the repository
digest	string	Content digest for integrity verification
mediaType	string	Media type of the package

Delete a skill version

Delete a specific version of a skill from a managed registry.

curl -X DELETE "https://REGISTRY_URL/registry/REGISTRY_NAME/v0.1/x/dev.toolhive/skills/NAMESPACE/SKILL_NAME/versions/VERSION" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN"

A successful delete returns a 204 No Content response.

Next steps

• Skills concept — understand what skills are and how they fit into the ToolHive ecosystem
• Registry API reference — full OpenAPI documentation for all registry endpoints
• Authentication configuration — configure access control for your registry