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Overview

Skills are a local agent extension and configuration surface. A skill can add durable instructions, scripts, workflows, or tool guidance that changes how an agent behaves when the runtime loads it. Beacon inventory can help identify local skill manifests under supported skill roots. It reports metadata such as names, paths, hashes, scope, modified time, and parser status. It does not retain SKILL.md instruction bodies in inventory output, dashboard responses, or inventory events.

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What Inventory Can Infer Today

Beacon dashboard Skills Inventory view showing local skill manifests and metadata.
Use beacon endpoint inventory --all to review skill metadata alongside harness, MCP server, hook, and config state:
Show skill inventory
beacon endpoint inventory --all
For machine-readable review, export JSON:
Export skill metadata
beacon endpoint inventory --json
Skill inventory is useful for:
  • Confirming expected local skill packs are present after workstation setup.
  • Spotting unexpected skills on sensitive endpoints or repositories.
  • Comparing user-scope and project-scope skill roots.
  • Detecting manifest changes through hashes and modified-time metadata.
  • Identifying parser failures that may prevent Beacon from understanding a manifest consistently.

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What To Review Manually

Inventory is intentionally conservative. It can identify local skill manifests and change indicators, but reviewers should inspect the skill contents, scripts, and repository context when deciding whether a skill is expected. Manual review should cover:
  • What instructions the skill gives the agent.
  • Whether the skill references local scripts, tools, shell commands, or external services.
  • Whether the skill is user-specific, project-specific, or checked into source control.
  • Whether the manifest hash changed at an expected time.
  • Whether the owning team recognizes the skill name and path.
Beacon does not claim to authenticate to or fully enumerate remote skill registries. Treat inventory as local endpoint visibility into supported paths, not as a registry audit.

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Runtime Telemetry And Detections

Skills may influence later runtime behavior. When a supported harness emits telemetry for tool calls, commands, file activity, approvals, or MCP-like tool usage, Beacon normalizes those events into the runtime log. Detections can evaluate that observed event stream. For example, a finding may be based on a command, file path, MCP server, approval decision, or tool call that occurred while an agent was using a skill-guided workflow. Inventory helps explain the local skill surface; detections evaluate what the agent actually did when telemetry was emitted.

Inventory Overview

Return to the Inventory landing page and command walkthrough.

beacon endpoint inventory

Review inventory flags, filtering, and JSON output.

Detections

Understand how rules evaluate observed endpoint events.

Data inventory

Review endpoint event data and inventory metadata behavior.