SmartSkills.Core 0.1.0-preview

SmartSkills

Automatically discover and install agent skills based on your project's dependencies. Supports .NET (NuGet) and Node.js (npm/yarn/pnpm) ecosystems. Available as both a CLI tool and MSBuild integration.

Overview

SmartSkills scans your project for installed packages and matches them against a remote skill registry to find relevant agent skills. Skills follow the Agent Skills specification and are downloaded, validated, and installed locally.

Key features:

• Scan projects and solutions for NuGet and npm dependencies
• Auto-detect project type (.NET, Node.js) in a directory
• Match packages against skill registries using exact and glob patterns
• Fetch skills from GitHub and Azure DevOps repositories
• Commit-SHA-based caching to skip unchanged skills
• Configurable multi-source registries with priority ordering

Installation

CLI Tool

dotnet tool install -g SmartSkills.Cli

MSBuild Integration

Add the NuGet package to your project:

<PackageReference Include="SmartSkills.MSBuild" Version="1.0.0" PrivateAssets="all" />

CLI Usage

Scan for Dependencies

# Scan current directory (auto-detects .sln or .csproj)
smart-skills scan

# Scan a specific project
smart-skills scan --project ./src/MyProject/MyProject.csproj

# Output as JSON
smart-skills scan --project ./src/MyProject --json

Install Skills

# Install skills based on detected packages
smart-skills install

# Install for a specific project
smart-skills install --project ./src/MyProject

# Preview without installing
smart-skills install --dry-run

List Installed Skills

smart-skills list
smart-skills list --json

Check Status

smart-skills status
smart-skills status --project ./src/MyProject

Restore Skills from Lock File

# Restore all skills to their exact locked versions
smart-skills restore

# Restore for a specific project
smart-skills restore --project ./src/MyProject

Uninstall a Skill

smart-skills uninstall my-skill-name

Global Options

Skills Lock File

SmartSkills uses a lock file (smart-skills.lock.json) to track the exact state of installed skills. It serves as the single source of truth for reproducible installations — analogous to packages.lock.json (NuGet) or yarn.lock (npm).

How It Works

When you run smart-skills install, the lock file records:

• Remote URL and skill path — where the skill was fetched from
• Commit SHA — the exact commit used for this version of the skill
• Content hash — a SHA256 hash of all installed files for local edit detection

On subsequent installs, SmartSkills compares the remote commit SHA and local content hash to determine whether a skill needs updating, is up-to-date, or has been locally modified.

Example Lock File

{
  "version": 1,
  "skills": {
    "azure-identity-dotnet": {
      "remoteUrl": "https://github.com/microsoft/skills",
      "skillPath": "skills/azure-identity-dotnet",
      "language": "dotnet",
      "commitSha": "abc123def456...",
      "localContentHash": "sha256:e3b0c44298fc1c14..."
    }
  }
}

Workflows

Version Control

The lock file should be committed to your repository. This ensures that all team members and CI pipelines restore the same skill versions. The file uses deterministic JSON formatting (sorted keys, consistent indentation) to produce clean diffs.

MSBuild Integration

Basic Setup

Add the package reference:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="SmartSkills.MSBuild" Version="1.0.0" PrivateAssets="all" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Skills are automatically resolved and installed during build.

Configuration Properties

Disabling for Specific Builds

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'">
  <SmartSkillsEnabled>false</SmartSkillsEnabled>
</PropertyGroup>

Skill Registry

SmartSkills ships with a built-in registry of curated skills that is embedded in the core library. When your project references a matching NuGet package, the corresponding skill is automatically discovered — no configuration needed.

Built-in Skills

The embedded registry includes skills from microsoft/skills and redis/agent-skills:

Adding Custom Registries

You can extend the built-in registry by providing additional JSON files. These are merged with the embedded registry at runtime — your custom entries are appended alongside the built-in ones.

Programmatic Usage

using SmartSkills.Core.Registry;

// Load only the built-in embedded registry
var entries = RegistryIndexParser.LoadEmbedded();

// Merge built-in + your custom registries
var entries = RegistryIndexParser.LoadMerged(new[]
{
    "path/to/my-team-skills.json",
    "path/to/project-skills.json"
});

// Parse a standalone registry file
var entries = RegistryIndexParser.Parse(jsonString);

Registry JSON Format

A skill registry is a JSON file that maps packages to skill locations:

{
  "repoUrl": "https://github.com/my-org/my-skills",
  "skills": [
    {
      "packagePatterns": ["Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore", "Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.*"],
      "skillPath": "skills/ef-core",
      "language": "dotnet"
    },
    {
      "packagePatterns": ["@azure/cosmos"],
      "skillPath": "skills/azure-cosmos-ts",
      "language": "javascript"
    },
    {
      "packagePatterns": ["SomePackage"],
      "skillPath": "skills/some-skill",
      "repoUrl": "https://github.com/other-org/other-repo"
    }
  ]
}

Package Patterns

Patterns support exact match and glob syntax:

• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore — matches exactly Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.* — matches any package starting with Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.
• Azure.Storage.* — matches Azure.Storage.Blobs, Azure.Storage.Queues, etc.

Authentication

• GitHub: Public repositories only — no authentication required.
• Azure DevOps: Uses DefaultAzureCredential from Azure.Identity. This automatically picks up credentials from Azure CLI (az login), environment variables, managed identity, etc.

Error Codes

Project Structure

src/
  SmartSkills.Core/        # Shared library (scanning, matching, fetching, installation)
  SmartSkills.Cli/         # CLI tool (System.CommandLine)
  SmartSkills.MSBuild/     # MSBuild tasks + props/targets
tests/
  SmartSkills.Core.Tests/  # Unit tests
  SmartSkills.Cli.Tests/   # E2E CLI tests
  SmartSkills.MSBuild.Tests/ # MSBuild task tests

Development

# Build
dotnet build

# Test
dotnet test

# Pack CLI tool
dotnet pack src/SmartSkills.Cli -o ./artifacts

# Pack MSBuild package
dotnet pack src/SmartSkills.MSBuild -o ./artifacts

License

MIT