Skills

The skill capability family is split across three packages: the registry (dsh-skill, ctx.skills) merges provider catalogs; the local provider (dsh-skill-local) scans project/custom/user directories; the consumer (dsh-tool-skill) owns the session-prefix catalog and model-facing skill tool. Skills are optional instructions, not session events, so their vocabulary lives here rather than in core.md.

Source: packages/skill/skill/src/index.ts, packages/skill/skill-local/src/index.ts, and packages/skill/tool-skill/src/index.ts.

Provider registry

ctx.skills is a multi-provider registry. Providers can represent local directories, embedded plugin data, HTTP catalogs, or another source. Provider plugins register synchronously during apply(); remote initialization, authentication, and discovery are awaited by list(). The registry validates candidates, resolves duplicate skill names first-wins by rank/provider order/local order, and sorts the final summaries by name for deterministic consumers. A provider list() rejection is logged and skipped without caching the degraded catalog; malformed candidates still fail fast because they violate the provider contract.

interface SkillProvider {
  name: string
  list(options: SkillLookupOptions): Promise<SkillCandidate[]>
  get(candidate: SkillCandidate, options: SkillLookupOptions): Promise<SkillDefinition | undefined>
}

Local discovery priority

The shipped local provider scans roots in rank order:

Rank	Source	Root
100	`project-dsh`	`<projectRoot>/.dsh/skills`
200	`project-agents`	`<projectRoot>/.agents/skills`
300	`custom`	`Config.customSkillDirs`
400	`user-dsh`	`<dshHome>/skills`
500	`user-agents`	`<agentsHome>/skills`

The project root is the nearest ancestor containing .git; without one, the current cwd is used. When ctx.fs is available, the git-root walk probes .git through the filesystem service so remote or sandboxed workspaces do not fall back to the host filesystem boundary. The user DSH root skips its .system child, and DeepSeek Harness no longer ships built-in system skills from the local provider. Additional built-ins can be supplied later by another provider.

Skill identity

Skill names are kebab-case (^[a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)*$). The local provider accepts directory bundles (<name>/SKILL.md) and flat Markdown files (<name>.md). Nested recursive **/SKILL.md discovery is intentionally outside v1.

type SkillSource = 'project-dsh' | 'project-agents' | 'runtime' | 'user-dsh' | 'user-agents' | 'custom' | (string & {})

Summaries, candidates, and complete definitions

SkillSummary is the registry's model-invocable summary shape. Consumers choose which fields to render; the session catalog uses only name and description, never the body or absolute file path. disableModelInvocation hides a skill from model listings while allowing trusted code to load it by name.

interface SkillSummary {
  name: string
  description: string
  whenToUse?: string
  disableModelInvocation?: boolean
  source: SkillSource
  provider: string
  resourceBase?: SkillResourceBase
}

SkillCandidate is the provider-to-registry shape. locator is opaque provider state; the registry only stores it and gives it back to the winning provider's get().

interface SkillCandidate extends SkillSummary {
  rank: number
  locator: unknown
  path?: string
  metadata?: Record<string, unknown>
}

SkillDefinition is the complete parsed result returned by ctx.skills.get() and used by the skill tool. resourceBase tells the tool how to render relative-resource guidance for local, URL, or provider-managed skills.

type SkillResourceBase =
  | { kind: 'directory'; path: string }
  | { kind: 'url'; url: string }
  | { kind: 'opaque'; description: string }

interface SkillDefinition extends SkillSummary {
  content: string
  path?: string
  metadata?: Record<string, unknown>
}

Runtime skills use the same complete shape and participate in the same first-wins collection order. The returned disposer removes the contribution and invalidates discovery caches.

type SkillRegistration = Omit<SkillDefinition, 'provider'> & {
  provider?: string
}

Lookup and configuration

Skill lookup is cwd-sensitive because providers may expose workspace-local skills, and its optional signal cancels provider work for the caller. If no git root is found, the local provider treats the supplied cwd itself as the project root.

interface SkillLookupOptions {
  cwd?: string | undefined
  signal?: AbortSignal | undefined
}

The registry owns only its discovery-cache bound. The local provider owns filesystem roots (dshHome, agentsHome, and customSkillDirs). The consumer owns its catalog description bound.

interface Config {
  collectCacheMaxEntries?: number
}

Session catalog and tool contract

dsh-tool-skill contributes a user-role <system-reminder> through agent/session-prefix. The catalog contains sorted skill name and normalized, XML-escaped description only; it omits bodies, paths, sources, providers, and routing hints. Prefix discovery forwards the caller's abort signal through SkillLookupOptions. catalogDescriptionMaxLength is the consumer config for the description bound, with default 500 and integer minimum 3. Its request-only, header-logged lifecycle is defined by the session-prefix RFC.

The model-facing skill({ name }) tool validates the kebab-case name, loads the complete definition for the calling agent cwd, reports an unresolved skill as unknown or no longer available, rejects disableModelInvocation skills, and returns a tool result containing <skill_content name="...">, <skill_resources>, and <skill_instructions>. resourceBase resolves explicitly referenced scripts, references, and assets only as needed; the loaded result does not enumerate a skill directory. The tool result is the model-visible path for complete instructions.

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