Claude Agent Skills Registry · FAQ
Claude skill registration, answered.
What SkillAuthor does, what it doesn't, and how the Claude Agent Skills Registry protects your work. Direct answers, no hedging.
Pricing & Product
- How much does SkillAuthor cost?
- $39 USD per Claude Agent Skill, one-time. No accounts, no subscriptions, no recurring fees. The fee covers a permanent record in the Claude Agent Skills Registry, a PDF certificate with a QR code, a SHA-256 timestamped fingerprint, and semantic near-duplicate protection.
- What do I get for $39?
- A permanent registration in the Claude Agent Skills Registry: a PDF certificate with a QR code linking to a public verification page, a SHA-256 fingerprint + UTC timestamp anchoring the exact bytes of your
.mdcorSKILL.mdfile, and automatic near-duplicate protection. You're notified by email if a later submission is strongly similar to your skill. - What is the refund policy?
- Each registration consumes a sequence number and produces a permanent record, so refunds are issued only on demonstrable technical failure — e.g. payment captured but no certificate generated. Email [email protected] with your registration number. Statutory consumer rights (EU right of withdrawal where applicable) override this clause.
Protection & Duplicates
- What happens if someone copies my Claude skill?
- We run two checks. (1) Exact match: a byte-identical SHA-256 collision is surfaced as a warning on the upload screen before payment. (2) Semantic near-duplicate: after every paid registration we run a similarity check against the Claude Agent Skills Registry. If a later submission strongly matches yours, you receive an email with the new registrant's name and contact. You can flag any alert as a false positive to tune your personal threshold.
- What if my skill is similar to an existing Claude skill?
- You're free to register it — each registration stands on its own and SkillAuthor doesn't arbitrate authorship. If your submission scores high semantic similarity against an earlier registration, the earlier registrant receives an email with your declared name and contact so they can reach out directly.
- Can I register a skill made with Claude, Cursor, or other agent frameworks?
- Yes. SkillAuthor registers the bytes of your
.mdcorSKILL.mdfile regardless of which agent framework consumes it. The certificate proves you authored the exact file at a specific moment — it doesn't depend on a particular runtime or vendor.
Verification
- How do I verify a Claude skill certificate without trusting SkillAuthor?
- Run
shasum -a 256 your-skill.mdclocally. Compare the output to the SHA-256 fingerprint printed on the certificate and shown at/v/<reg>. A match means same bytes; a mismatch means the file was modified. The PDF is self-contained — no SkillAuthor infrastructure is required for the comparison. - When does my registration become publicly verifiable?
- Within seconds of payment confirmation. The Stripe webhook seals the record, mints a registration number, and
/v/<reg>resolves immediately. The success page polls until the number is minted; if the webhook is delayed (rare), the record is still safe — refresh and it appears. - Is there a programmatic API?
- Three stable public endpoints today:
POST /api/register/check— lookup by SHA-256, returns the registration if any.GET /api/certificate/<reg>/pdf— re-download a certificate (no expiry).GET /api/certificate/<reg>/qr— 1024×1024 PNG of the verification QR.
Technical & Legal
- Does registering give me copyright?
- No. Copyright arises automatically in most jurisdictions when a work is fixed in tangible form. SkillAuthor provides independent, cryptographic evidence that a specific
.mdcorSKILL.mdfile existed at a specific moment and that you claimed it — evidence that tilts the scale in a dispute, but not a substitute for a lawyer. - What is stored, and what is actually public?
- Stored: the full file bytes, SHA-256, file size, filename, your author name, your email, the timestamp, and Stripe payment identifiers. Public: filename, SHA-256, author name, registration number, and registration date. Your email address is never published — it is used for the receipt, transactional email, and authorship correspondence only.
- Can I edit a registration after it's been issued?
- No. Edits would break the cryptographic proof. If your skill evolves, register a new version — each version gets its own registration number, SHA-256 fingerprint, and certificate.
- Can I register pseudonymously or on behalf of a company?
- Yes. The author name is whatever you type at registration — we don't verify identity. Use the legal name, brand name, or handle you want printed on the certificate.
- What happens if SkillAuthor goes offline?
- Your PDF certificate is self-contained. Anyone with the original .mdc can run shasum -a 256 and confirm the fingerprint matches what is printed on the cert. Our infrastructure is convenient, not load-bearing for verification. If we ever wind down, a final portable snapshot of the Claude Agent Skills Registry will be published.
Question not answered here? Email [email protected] and we'll reply — and add the question here if it's likely to come up again. Privacy and data-subject requests (GDPR): [email protected]. Learn how SkillAuthor works, browse the guides, verify a Claude skill, or read the technical overview.