Skill View: Local GUI for Agent Skill Inspection

Where this fits

You're building an agent and your workspace is accumulating skills from Amp, Codex, Claude Code, and plugins. You know they exist, but you can't remember which version is active, where it came from, or whether it's safe to delete. You need a quick, local way to see every SKILL.md on your machine without leaving your editor's terminal.

Why agents benefit

• Provenance-aware inventory – Skill View traces each skill to its source (user, project, plugin, cache, marketplace) so you can reason about trust and update paths.
• Unified view across ecosystems – It reads native Amp/Codex directories, Claude plugin registries, and symlink targets, giving you one pane of glass instead of grepping multiple filesystems.
• Local-only by design – The GUI binds to 127.0.0.1, so no skill metadata ever leaves your machine—critical if you handle proprietary or sensitive skill definitions.
• Instant search and detail preview – Filter by name, tag, or source, and click into a skill to see the full SKILL.md frontmatter and body without opening a file.
• Zero configuration – Run one command from your workspace; it discovers relevant directories automatically, including hidden plugin caches.

Practical scenarios

Auditing a plugin cache before cleanup

Your project pulls skills from a shared plugin registry, but the cache folder is 2GB. Skill View lists every cached skill with its origin and last-modified time, so you can confidently remove stale entries without breaking active agent workflows.

Comparing skill versions across environments

You maintain skills in both a global user directory and a project-specific folder. Skill View shows both side by side, highlighting differences in frontmatter or instructions, helping you decide which version to standardize on.

Onboarding a new agent to an existing codebase

A teammate joins your project and needs to understand which skills the agent uses. Instead of reading raw markdown files, they open Skill View, filter by project source, and see the full skill list with descriptions—reducing ramp-up time from hours to minutes.

Add it to your agent workflow

Install via the OpenAgentSkill CLI:

npx skills add pc-style/skill-view

Then run it from any workspace you want to inspect:

npx @pc_style/skillview

A browser opens at http://127.0.0.1:4173 (or similar) showing the skill inventory. Use the search bar to filter and click any skill to read its full definition. You can also run it headless with --json for scripting.

For more context on how this skill fits into the broader ecosystem, see the skill page on OpenAgentSkill.

Compare before adopting

Before committing, compare Skill View with alternatives like grep-based scripts or editor extensions. Evaluate:

• Quality signals – Does it handle edge cases (symlinks, malformed frontmatter, duplicate skill IDs)?
• Maintenance freshness – Check the GitHub repo for recent commits and issue responsiveness.
• Alternatives – Some agents have built-in skill managers (e.g., Claude's /skills), but they often lack cross-tool provenance.
• Workflow fit – Does a GUI fit your terminal-centric flow, or do you need a CLI-only tool? Skill View offers both.

Why it is worth tracking

Skill View is stable (status: stable), MIT-licensed, and actively maintained with 65 stars at the time of writing. Its focus on provenance and local-only operation aligns with growing concerns about agent data privacy. As the SKILL.md format gains adoption across more coding agents, tools that unify inspection will become essential. Track it now if you manage more than a handful of skills; reevaluate when you start using multiple agent runtimes or share skills across teams.