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SkillReg and MCP Registries: Skills and MCP Servers Are Two Layers
Facts about third-party tools were checked on October 16, 2026. Each one links to a numbered, dated source at the bottom of the page. Anything we could not check is marked "not verified".
Smithery, Glama and the official MCP Registry often come up next to SkillReg when people search for "where to share agent skills". They answer a different question. MCP registries help you find MCP servers, which give an agent new tools. SkillReg hosts skills, which tell an agent how to do a task. Most teams will end up using both layers.
Skills and MCP servers are different things
A skill is a directory with a SKILL.md file: YAML frontmatter with a name and a description, then instructions the agent follows when the skill applies [3]. It is text that changes how the agent works, for example "how we write release notes" or "how we deploy this service".
An MCP server is a program that exposes tools over the Model Context Protocol. An agent connects to it and calls its tools, for example "create a GitHub issue" [1].
Claude Code itself treats them as separate surfaces: its managed settings list skills and mcp as distinct customization sources that administrators can lock independently [4].
What MCP registries do
- Smithery's MCP registry lets you search, connect and publish MCP servers with
smithery mcp search,smithery mcp addandsmithery mcp publish, then list and call their tools withsmithery tool[1]. - Glama maintains a registry of MCP servers with an API; MCPfinder indexes it as one of its three sources of MCP servers [2]. What else Glama offers is not verified (as of October 16, 2026).
- The official MCP Registry is served at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io and is the first source MCPfinder synchronizes [2]. Its governance, publishing rules and roadmap are not verified (as of October 16, 2026).
MCPfinder alone reports an index of "25,000+ MCP servers" across these three registries [2]. These registries list servers to connect to, not SKILL.md instructions.
The Smithery Skills Registry is a separate product
Smithery also runs the Smithery Skills Registry at smithery.ai/skills. Its CLI documents it in a separate "Skills" section, with smithery skill search, smithery skill add <skill> --agent <name>, votes and reviews [1]. It is a public directory of skills, distinct from Smithery's MCP registry. We compare public skill directories, including this one, in SkillReg vs Public Skill Directories.
Where SkillReg fits
SkillReg is not an MCP server registry. It does not list, host or proxy MCP servers. It is a private registry for your organization's skills: publish versions with skillreg push, install them for Claude, Codex and Cursor with skillreg pull, and get security scanning on every publish on all plans, with audit logs from Team (pricing).
| Question | MCP registries (Smithery MCP, Glama, official MCP Registry) | SkillReg |
|---|---|---|
| What is listed | MCP servers and the tools they expose [1] [2] | SKILL.md skills |
| What the agent gets | New tools it can call [1] | Instructions on how to do a task [3] |
| Audience | Public discovery of servers [2] | Private sharing inside an organization |
| Claude Code setting | MCP configuration surface [4] | Skills surface, installed into .claude/skills/ |
Using both layers
A typical setup uses an MCP server for access and a skill for know-how. For example, connect a GitHub MCP server found in an MCP registry, then publish a triage-issues skill in SkillReg that tells the agent how your team labels and assigns issues with that server's tools. The server stays public and generic; the skill stays private and specific to your team.
Related comparisons
- SkillReg vs skills.sh
- SkillReg vs Claude Code Plugin Marketplaces and GitHub Skill Repos
- SkillReg vs Skillkit
- SkillReg vs Public Skill Directories
Sources
- @smithery/cli 4.11.1 on npm, README, sections "MCP Servers", "Tools", "Skills" and "Publishing". Version published 2026-04-30; checked 2026-10-16.
- @mcpfinder/server 1.5.0 on npm, README of MCPfinder, a third-party index of MCP servers. Version published 2026-10-01; checked 2026-10-16.
- skills 1.7.2 on npm, README of the skills CLI, sections "What are Agent Skills?" and "Creating Skills". Version published 2026-10-09; checked 2026-10-16.
- @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk 0.3.301 on npm, Claude Code settings types in sdk.d.ts (strictPluginOnlyCustomization). Version published 2026-10-15; checked 2026-10-16.