What is an agent skill?
An agent skill is a self-contained installable package that gives an AI agent specialized knowledge of a specific API, service, or workflow.
A skill usually includes:
- API schemas and tool definitions for the agent to invoke
- Example prompts showing how to use the API
- Operational instructions and edge-case guidance
- Configuration templates for client integration
- Optional: pre-trained context the agent loads before tool calls
Hive publishes skills through the public hive-intel/hive-skills mirror, the live MCP resource hive://skills, a public JSON index at /skills/index.json, and Markdown mirrors under /skills. Install the public skill pack with npx skills add hive-intel/hive-skills, or inspect it first with npx skills add hive-intel/hive-skills --list. The CLI setup command is npx -y -p hive-intelligence@latest hive init --all --browser; registering Hive MCP still happens through the per-client install guides.
Skills vs MCP servers
These are complementary, not alternative:
- MCP server — a running process the agent calls at runtime to invoke tools and fetch live data. Stateful, networked, authenticated.
- Skill — static knowledge the agent reads into context before any tool call. API docs, example workflows, prompt templates.
Most agent-facing products benefit from both: an MCP server for live tool execution, and skills for the surrounding knowledge needed to use the MCP correctly.
Hive ships its v1 skill pack with the MCP repo, mirrors installable skills at github.com/hive-intel/hive-skills, exposes runtime metadata at hive://skills, mirrors public JSON at /skills/index.json, and publishes a human-readable index at /skills. The current source of truth remains the MCP product contract; the GitHub mirror is the public installation path for agents that support the skills CLI.