Registry

The skill registry is where skern stores skill definitions. Skills are organized as directories, each containing a SKILL.md file.

Scopes

Project Scope

Project-scoped skills live in .skern/skills/ within your project directory. These are specific to the project and can be checked into version control.

.skern/
  skills/
    code-review/
      SKILL.md
    deploy/
      SKILL.md
      scripts/
        deploy.sh
      config/
        targets.json

Initialize the project registry with:

skern init

User Scope

User-scoped skills live in ~/.skern/skills/ and are available across all projects on your machine.

~/.skern/
  skills/
    global-lint/
      SKILL.md
      scripts/
        lint-rules.js

Scope Selection

Most commands accept a --scope flag:

Value	Description
project	Project-level registry only (default for most commands)
user	User-level registry only
all	Both registries

Skill Count Warnings

Registries have recommended size limits:

• Project scope — warns at > 20 skills
• User scope — warns at > 50 skills

These are soft limits — skern will continue to work, but warns to encourage organization.

Registry vs Platform

The registry is where skills are defined. Platforms are where skills are installed. A skill must exist in the registry before it can be installed to a platform.

Registry (.skern/skills/) --install--> Platform (.claude/skills/)

See Platform Adapters for installation details.