Group Type
Working GroupMission 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.Scope
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
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
Related Groups
- Agents WG — How agents consume server metadata, skill activation
- Registry WG — Skills discovery/distribution, registry schema changes
- Primitive Grouping WG — Progressive disclosure patterns
Leadership
Authority & Decision Rights
| Decision Type | Authority Level |
|---|---|
| Meeting logistics & scheduling | WG Leads (autonomous) |
| Proposal prioritization within WG | WG Leads (autonomous) |
| SEP triage & closure (in scope) | WG Leads (autonomous, with documented rationale) |
| Technical design within scope | WG consensus |
| Spec changes (additive) | WG consensus → Core Maintainer approval |
| Spec changes (breaking/fundamental) | WG consensus → Core Maintainer approval + wider review |
| Scope expansion | Core Maintainer approval required |
| WG Member approval | WG Member sponsors |
Membership
| Name | Organization | GitHub | Discord | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ola Hungerford | Nordstrom / MCP Maintainer | @olaservo | Lead | |
| Peter Alexander | Anthropic / Core Maintainer | @pja-ant | Lead | |
| Yu Yi | @erain | Participant | ||
| Sunish Sheth | Databricks | @sunishsheth2009 | Participant | |
| Keith A Groves | Hyix | @keithagroves | Participant | |
| Peder Holdgaard Pedersen | Saxo Bank / MCP Maintainer | @pederhp | Participant | |
| Sam Morrow | GitHub | @SamMorrowDrums | Participant | |
| Jacob MacDonald | @jakemac53 | Participant | ||
| Jonathan Hefner | Independent / MCP Maintainer | @jonathanhefner | Participant | |
| Luca Chang | AWS / MCP Maintainer | @LucaButBoring | Participant | |
| Bob Dickinson | TeamSpark.ai / MCP Maintainer | @BobDickinson | Participant | |
| Radoslav Dimitrov | Stacklok / MCP Maintainer | @rdimitrov | Participant | |
| Juan Antonio Osorio | Stacklok | @JAORMX | Participant | |
| Kaxil Naik | Astronomer / Apache Airflow PMC | @kaxil | Participant | |
| Cliff Hall | Futurescale | @cliffhall | Participant |
Operations
| Meeting | Frequency | Duration | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working Session | Weekly (Tuesdays) | 60 minutes | Technical discussion, pattern evaluation, proposal review; open to all participants |
Resources
- Experimental findings and reference implementations: modelcontextprotocol/experimental-ext-skills
- Project board: Skills Over MCP WG
Deliverables & Success Metrics
Active Work Items
Full live tracking is on the Skills Over MCP WG project board. Headline workstreams:| Item | Status | Target Date | Champion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skills Extension SEP (draft, Extensions Track) | In Review | @pja-ant | |
| Skills Extension reference implementation | In Review | @olaservo | |
| Agent Skills spec coordination | In Progress | @jonathanhefner, @pja-ant | |
| Registry skills.json proposal | In Progress | @JAORMX |
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
Changelog
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 2026-04-16 | Converted from Interest Group to Working Group |
| 2026-04-14 | Initial charter (formalized from experimental-ext-skills repo README, which served as the de facto charter before the charter process was established via SEP-2149) |
| 2026-02-01 | IG formed; experimental repo created |