Skillex

Skill management for AI agents in polyglot projects.

Skillex helps agents load the right guidance for the code they are working on without dumping an entire repo's docs into context. It indexes repo skills, package skills, packs, scope rules, and installed package versions, then answers targeted queries in microseconds.

What Skillex does

• Resolves the right skills for a file path, package, topic, or tag
• Handles monorepos and multiple installed versions of the same package
• Separates public consumer skills from private maintainer skills
• Activates pack-shipped skills from project files, dependencies, and detectors
• Lets packages and Go modules ship skillex/pack.yaml with their code
• Exposes the index through both MCP and a CLI fallback
• Generates AGENTS.md instructions for agents that cannot use MCP directly

Recommended install

For cross-ecosystem use, install Skillex as a global platform utility. See the main project README for the universal installer.

Node dev dependency

Use this npm package when a Node.js project wants Skillex pinned as local dev tooling:

npm install --save-dev @atheory-ai/skillex
# or
pnpm add -D @atheory-ai/skillex
# or
yarn add -D @atheory-ai/skillex

The wrapper package installs the correct native binary for your platform through npm optionalDependencies.

Quick start

Initialize Skillex in your repository:

skillex init

Rebuild the local skill index:

skillex refresh

Query the skills that apply to a file:

skillex query --path packages/app-a/src/auth.ts

Query by topic, tag, or package:

skillex query --topic auth
skillex query --tags migration,breaking-change
skillex query --package @acme/foo

Return full skill content for an agent:

skillex query --path packages/app-a/** --format content

Example workflow

1. Add repo skills in skills/ and configure scopes in skillex.json
2. Run skillex refresh to rebuild .skillex/index.db
3. Let your agent query only the skills relevant to its current task

Packs

Packs are Skillex's ecosystem extension mechanism. A pack bundles skill files with activation rules and optional detectors:

skillex/
  pack.yaml
  usage.md

name: my-framework
version: 1.0.0
detectors:
  my-framework:
    matches:
      - dependency:
          source: npm-package
          name: my-framework
skills:
  - file: usage.md
    activate-when:
      detector: my-framework
    scope: boundary

Projects can commit packs locally, and libraries can ship packs with their package/module source. Go modules are supported through go.mod, local replace, and vendor module roots; Skillex does not download dependencies during refresh or query.

Why this exists

Without scoped skill retrieval, agents either get too little context or far too much of it. Skillex moves scope resolution into deterministic indexing so the model receives the small, correct slice of guidance for the current path and dependency boundary.

Repository

• Source: https://github.com/atheory-ai/skillex
• Documentation: https://github.com/atheory-ai/skillex/blob/main/README.md