@frontmcp/skills

FrontMCP's skills catalog: folders of instructions (SKILL.md, references and examples) that teach a coding agent, such as Claude Code or Codex, how to build, test and deploy a FrontMCP server. The frontmcp CLI reads it to install skills into your project; you rarely install this package yourself.

Installing skills

Use the CLI, which depends on this package:

npx frontmcp skills list                            # the catalog, by category
npx frontmcp skills search "openapi"                # rank skills by a query
npx frontmcp skills install create-tool             # copy one skill into .claude/skills/
npx frontmcp skills install --all --provider codex  # every skill, into .codex/skills/
npx frontmcp skills read create-tool quick-start    # print a skill or one of its references

frontmcp create copies the recommended bundle into a new project (--skills recommended|minimal|full|none), and nx g @frontmcp/nx:server takes the same --skills option. See Skills in the CLI reference for every option.

The catalog

Reading the catalog from code

npm install @frontmcp/skills

import { getSkillsByBundle, loadManifest, resolveSkillPath } from '@frontmcp/skills';

const manifest = loadManifest();
for (const skill of getSkillsByBundle(manifest.skills, 'minimal')) {
  console.log(skill.name, resolveSkillPath(skill));
}

loadManifest() reads catalog/skills-manifest.json from the installed package. getSkillsByTarget, getSkillsByCategory, getInstructionOnlySkills and getResourceSkills filter its skills, and resolveSkillPath returns the absolute path of a skill's folder.

Docs

• Skills commands in the CLI reference
• Docs for your agent: FrontMCP's docs over MCP, for the release you use
• Skills in your own server: @Skill, which serves skills to MCP clients

Related packages

• frontmcp — the CLI behind frontmcp skills and frontmcp create --skills
• @frontmcp/nx — the Nx server generator, which installs skills too
• @frontmcp/sdk — the framework the skills describe

Contributing

Source: libs/skills. Issues and pull requests are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md. A change to FrontMCP's behavior updates the matching skills in the same pull request.

Structure

Most skills are router skills: a SKILL.md with a routing table, a references/ directory of topic guides, and optional examples/<reference-name>/ directories. create-tool is a component skill (layout: component): flat examples/ and DO/DON'T rules/.

catalog/
├── skills-manifest.json       # Machine-readable index, generated from the SKILL.md files
├── TEMPLATE.md                # Starting point for a new SKILL.md
├── create-tool/               # Component skill: references/, examples/, rules/
├── frontmcp-setup/            # Router skills: SKILL.md, references/, examples/
├── frontmcp-development/
├── ...                        # One directory per skill in the table above
└── frontmcp-guides/

Each router skill directory follows this format:

frontmcp-development/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: frontmatter + routing table + instructions
└── references/       # Reference files with detailed per-topic guides
    ├── create-resource.md
    ├── create-agent.md
    └── ...

Example files live under examples/<reference-name>/ and are the canonical source of example metadata used by skills-manifest.json and the reference ## Examples tables.

SKILL.md Frontmatter

---
name: my-skill # Required: kebab-case, max 64 chars
description: What the skill does # Required: short description
tags: [setup, redis] # Optional: categorization tags
tools: # Optional: tool references
  - tool_name
  - name: detailed_tool
    purpose: Why this tool is used
    required: true
parameters: # Optional: input parameters
  - name: param_name
    description: What it controls
    type: string
    default: value
examples: # Optional: usage examples
  - scenario: When to use this
    expected-outcome: What happens
priority: 5 # Optional: search ranking weight
visibility: both # Optional: mcp | http | both
compatibility: Node.js 24+ # Optional: environment requirements
license: MIT # Optional: license
allowed-tools: Read Edit # Optional: pre-approved tools
rating: 4.5 # Optional (v1.2): 0..5 quality rating, surfaced via Skills HTTP API min-rating filter
category: development # Optional (v1.2): catalog category override (defaults to the directory's parent category)
requires: [frontmcp-setup] # Optional (v1.2): other skill names this depends on; resolver registers deps first
---
# Skill Instructions

Step-by-step markdown instructions here...

Adding a New Skill

Prefer adding a reference to an existing skill over creating a new top-level skill directory.

1. Identify the skill your content belongs to (see The catalog)
2. Create a new .md reference file in that skill's references/ directory
3. Add a routing entry in the skill's SKILL.md routing table
4. Regenerate the manifest with node libs/skills/scripts/generate-manifest.mjs (nx build skills runs it too)
5. Run nx test skills to validate

For a new top-level skill, start from catalog/TEMPLATE.md.

Adding Example Files

Each reference may have a matching examples/<reference-name>/ directory with standalone example files.

---
name: example-name
reference: parent-reference-name
level: basic
description: One sentence describing the exact scenario this example covers.
tags: [keyword1, keyword2, keyword3]
features:
  - Concrete API or pattern this example demonstrates
  - Another concrete behavior shown in the code
---

Rules:

• name must match the filename without .md
• reference must match the parent examples directory
• description is the canonical one-line summary reused by the manifest and reference table
• tags are searchable keywords for the example
• features are the concrete APIs or patterns demonstrated by the code
• The first paragraph under the H1 should semantically match description

Manifest Entry

Each skill has a corresponding entry in skills-manifest.json, generated from its SKILL.md:

{
  "name": "frontmcp-development",
  "category": "development",
  "description": "Domain router for building MCP components",
  "path": "frontmcp-development",
  "targets": ["all"],
  "hasResources": true,
  "tags": ["router", "development", "tools", "resources"],
  "bundle": ["recommended", "minimal", "full"]
}

Target Values

• all — applies to all deployment targets
• node — Node.js / Docker deployments
• vercel — Vercel serverless
• lambda — AWS Lambda
• cloudflare — Cloudflare Workers

Bundle Values

• recommended — included in default scaffold
• minimal — included in minimal scaffold
• full — only in full scaffold

Validation

node libs/skills/scripts/generate-manifest.mjs --check   # the manifest matches the catalog
nx test skills

Tests verify:

• All SKILL.md files parse correctly
• Manifest entries match filesystem (no orphans)
• Names match between manifest and frontmatter
• hasResources flags are accurate
• Targets, categories, and bundles use valid values
• Example metadata stays in sync across example files, reference tables, and the manifest

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.