Show HN: Give Your AI the Ability to Find, Install, and Use Skill Autonomously | Hacker News

URL: https://github.com/twwch/next-chat-skills---Text (paste into the "text" field):Hi HN,I built an open-source AI assistant that can autonomously discover, install, and execute Skills to actually complete tasks for you.The Problem:Most AI chatbots today are stuck in "read-only" mode. They can tell you how to do something, but they can't do it. Want to convert a PPTX to PDF? The AI will explain how, but you still have to run the commands yourself.The Solution:Next-Chat-Skills is a self-hosted AI assistant with a plugin system called Skills. When you ask the AI to do something it can't handle natively, it:1. Searches for a relevant Skill (like an app store for AI capabilities) 2. Installs it automatically (npx skills add ...) 3. Executes the Skill's scripts (Python, Node.js, Shell) 4. Streams real-time output back to you in a terminal UI 5. Recovers from errors by installing missing dependencies and retryingFor example: User: "Summarize this YouTube video for me" AI: -> Searches for a video-summarizer Skill -> Installs it (yt-dlp + Whisper) -> Downloads the video, transcribes audio -> Returns a structured summary No manual setup. No copy-pasting commands. The AI handles the entire workflow.What is a Skill?A Skill is just a folder with a SKILL.md descriptor and some scripts: ~/.agents/skills/video-summarizer/ ├── SKILL.md # Metadata + description ├── scripts/ │ ├── download.py # Download video │ ├── transcribe.py # Whisper transcription │ └── summarize.js # Generate summary └── rules/ # Usage guidelines for the AI Anyone can create and share Skills. The AI reads the SKILL.md to understand when and how to invoke each script. It's composable — the more Skills you add, the more capable your assistant becomes.Key Features:- Autonomous Skill discovery & installation — AI finds and installs what it needs - Real-time script execution — streams terminal output via SSE, supports Python/Node.js/Shell - File generation & download — scripts can generate files (PPTX, PDF, images) that users can download directly from chat - Multi-file upload & parsing — supports images, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX - Dual database — SQLite (zero-config) or PostgreSQL (production) - Optional auth — Google OAuth or fingerprint-based, works without login too - Docker-ready — pre-built image with Python, FFmpeg, LibreOffice, and popular Skills pre-installed - Works with any OpenAI-compatible API — GPT-4o, Claude (via proxy), local models, etc.Tech Stack: Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, Vercel AI SDK, Tailwind CSS 4, shadcn/ui, Drizzle ORM (SQLite / PostgreSQL), Docker (Node.js 20 + Python 3)Quick Start: # Docker (fastest) docker run -p 3000:3000 \ -e OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-xxx \ -e OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1 \ twwch/next-chat-skills:latest # Or from source git clone https://github.com/twwch/next-chat-skills cd next-chat-skills npm install && npm run dev Why I Built This:I got tired of AI assistants that stop at "here's a code snippet." I wanted an AI that could actually run the code, handle failures, install dependencies, and deliver the final result — like having a junior developer who can use any Skill you point them at.The Skills system makes this extensible without modifying the core app. Anyone can package a workflow as a Skill and share it.What's Next:- Skill marketplace / registry for community sharing - Multi-step workflow chaining (Skill A output -> Skill B input) - Better sandboxing for script execution - MCP (Model Context Protocol) integrationI'd love to hear your feedback. What Skills would you want to see? What's missing?GitHub: https://github.com/twwch/next-chat-skills License: Apache 2.0