skill-distributionlisted

# Distributing Agent Skills A skill is a directory containing a `SKILL.md` file, optionally alongside `scripts/`, `references/` and `assets/`. Every skills-compatible agent loads it the same way: **it reads a folder on disk.** No mainstream client installs a skill from an arbitrary HTTP URL. That single fact decides the whole distribution question. A download link is not an install mechanism; it is a file the user still has to unpack into the right directory. Anything that claims to be a one-command install has to put a directory somewhere the client already scans. ## Where clients look **Claude Code** reads three locations, in precedence order (enterprise beats personal, personal beats project): | Scope | Path | |-------|------| | Personal | `~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` | | Project | `.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` | | Plugin | `<plugin>/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` | Project skills also load from `.claude/skills/` in every parent directory up to the repository root, and from nested `.claude/skills/` directories once Claude reads or edits a file inside that subdirectory. Symlinks are followed. Changes to `SKILL.md` are picked up within the session without a restart. **Codex** scans, in scope order: `$CWD/.agents/skills`, `$CWD/../.agents/skills`, `$REPO_ROOT/.agents/skills`, `$HOME/.agents/skills`, and `/etc/codex/skills`. It follows symlinks and detects changes automatically. It also ships a built-in `$skill-installer` for fetching a skill into one of those locatio