Write one skill.
Run it everywhere.

Authoring an AutoVault skill is writing a single SKILL.md that declares what it does, what it needs, and how it should be rendered for each calling agent. The vault handles the rest — validation, signing, scoping, transformation.

YAML frontmatterCanonical capabilitiesPer-caller transformPermission boundaries

Anatomy of a SKILL.md

Hover a block to see why AutoVault cares about it. The body remains human-readable markdown; the frontmatter gives the vault enough structure to validate and render the skill safely.

● SIGNEDextract-pdf/SKILL.md33 lines · ed25519

1---
2name: extract-pdf
3version: 1.4.0
4description: "Extract structured text from PDF files."
5author: autoworks-ai
6license: Apache-2.0
7 
8tools_required:
9  - browser.fill_form
10  - browser.click
11  - fs.read
12  - fs.write
13 
14transformations:
15  claude-code:
16    browser.fill_form: chrome-devtools
17    fs.read: read
18  codex:
19    browser.fill_form: browser_form
20    fs.read: file_read
21 
22permissions:
23  network: false
24  fs_scope: ["./inputs", "./outputs"]
25  egress: deny
26 
27---
28 
29# Extract PDF text
30Use this skill when the user provides a PDF path
31and asks for its text contents, structure, or
32summarization. Returns markdown with preserved
33headings, lists, and table layout where possible.

Validation playground

The real gate runs deeper checks, but this playground shows the contract: structured metadata, canonical capabilities, permission declarations, and transformations get checked before anything is admitted.

local demoGate preflight

SKILL.md · editable

gate output

Run the preflight to see yaml-repair, denylist, capability, dedup, and sign checks.

Transformation manifest

Authors write against canonical capability names. AutoVault renders the skill for each caller at delivery time, so the author does not maintain platform forks.

claude-code

browser.fill_form → chrome-devtools

browser.click → chrome-devtools

fs.read → read

fs.write → write

codex

browser.fill_form → browser_form

browser.click → browser_click

fs.read → file_read

fs.write → file_write

cursor

browser.fill_form → playwright_fill_form

browser.click → playwright_click

fs.read → fs_read

fs.write → fs_write

Permissions

Declare exact canonical tools.
Declare network and filesystem scope.
Keep secrets as named references only.

Don't

Hide shell access inside prose.
Embed credentials in frontmatter.
Ship a generic helper skill with broad powers.

Publish through the gate

Proposed

source adapter

Repaired

frontmatter clean

Scanned

denylist + behavior

Signed

ed25519 provenance

Indexed

searchable · scopable