Investigate resource template skill discovery with GitHub MCP server and existing clients

[olaservo]

Background

Sam Morrow (GitHub) created a proof-of-concept PR on the GitHub MCP server that uses MCP resource templates to dynamically expose skills across GitHub repos. The approach uses a skill:// base URI with completions to enumerate skills in a given repo, producing manifests like:

{"skill":"copilot-sdk","files":[{"path":"SKILL.md","uri":"repo://github/awesome-copilot/contents/plugins/copilot-sdk/skills/copilot-sdk/SKILL.md","size":22409}]}

This avoids static resource lists — important at GitHub's scale where enumerating all repos isn't feasible.

Sam asked in Discord (3/3/26) whether any existing client (specifically FastMCP) could consume this today.

Questions to Investigate

1. Can FastMCP's skills-as-resources client support load skills from resource templates (not just resources/list)?
2. Can any other MCP client follow the manifest → repo:// URI → skill content chain end-to-end?
3. What client-side changes (if any) are needed to support template-based skill discovery with completions?
4. How does model-driven template completion compare to application-controlled resources/list for skill discovery UX?

References

• GitHub MCP server PR: github/github-mcp-server#2129
• FastMCP skills support: gofastmcp.com/servers/providers/skills
• Related: Survey client resource-loading support across major MCP clients #38 (client resource-loading survey), Build server-side reference implementation for skills-as-resources #41 (server reference impl), Define well-known URI schemes and naming patterns for skill resources #44 (URI schemes)
• Approach 3 resource template variant in docs/approaches.md
• Sam's related input on ephemeral skill availability and server trust model in docs/approaches.md