Story

Hi HN,

I’ve been working on a simple idea: instead of hard-coding capabilities into Codex-like agents, let them install skills on demand, from a public registry.

The setup is intentionally minimal:

A public skill registry (JSON index + signed artifacts)

A CLI (npx codex-skill install <skill>) for humans

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server so agents can:

search skills

fetch manifests

verify artifacts

install workflows programmatically

As a concrete example, the first skill is a theming skill for frontend projects (static HTML or Next.js + shadcn/ui). An agent can install the skill, apply a theme, and produce a clean diff in under a minute.

What this enables:

Agents that evolve without redeploying the core model

A neutral, inspectable “app store” for agent skills

Deterministic workflows (install → apply → diff → verify)

Humans and agents using the same install path

This is early and intentionally boring technically. The goal is to see if a shared skill ecosystem for agents actually makes sense in practice.

Happy to hear thoughts, criticism, or similar experiments people have tried.

Repo / demo links in comments if relevant.