List all external Agent Skills currently installed in the local environment. Call this tool when the user asks 'what skills do I have' or 'show my skills', to complement your knowledge of built-in tools.
AI agents call skills_list to retrieve information from Skills MCP without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool queries and retrieves information about installed skills in the local environment without creating, modifying, executing, or deleting anything. It has minimal blast radius—an agent using this tool can only discover what capabilities are available, not invoke them or cause side effects. This is a standard Read category operation.
From the tool's definition Tool description states it 'List[s] all external Agent Skills currently installed' with no modification or execution capability. The verb 'list' and the read-only nature of enumerating installed skills confirms this is a retrieval operation.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
List all external Agent Skills currently installed in the local environment. Call this tool when the user asks 'what skills do I have' or 'show my skills', to complement your knowledge of built-in tools. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Skills MCP MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Skills MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for skills_list: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Skills MCP. Nothing to install.
skills_list is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the skills_list rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for skills_list. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
skills_list is provided by the Skills MCP server (leezhuuuuu/skills-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
Type a name, get the same breakdown: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, capabilities, recommended policy.
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