Many skills include additional documentation beyond the main SKILL.md file. Skyll can fetch these "reference files" to provide richer context.
Reference files are additional markdown documents that provide:
- Detailed guides and tutorials
- Code examples and templates
- Best practices and patterns
- API documentation
Skills with references typically have this structure:
skill-folder/
├── SKILL.md # Main skill instructions
├── references/ # Primary reference directory
│ ├── concept-1.md
│ ├── concept-2.md
│ └── examples.md
├── resources/ # Alternative directory
├── docs/ # Alternative directory
├── examples/ # Alternative directory
└── rules/ # Alternative directory
Skyll also detects sibling .md files in the same directory as SKILL.md.
# Include references in search results
curl "https://api.skyll.app/search?q=react+native&include_references=true"
# Add skill with references
curl "https://api.skyll.app/skill/react-best-practices?include_references=true"
# Fetch a specific skill with references
curl "https://api.skyll.app/skills/owner/repo/skill-id?include_references=true"{
"name": "add_skill",
"arguments": {
"name": "react-best-practices",
"include_references": true
}
}{
"name": "search_skills",
"arguments": {
"query": "react native",
"limit": 3,
"include_references": true
}
}When include_references=true, the response includes a references array:
{
"id": "react-native-best-practices",
"content": "# React Native Best Practices\n\nMain skill content...",
"references": [
{
"name": "flatlist-optimization.md",
"path": "skills/react-native/references/flatlist-optimization.md",
"content": "# FlatList Optimization\n\nFull reference content...",
"raw_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/owner/repo/main/skills/react-native/references/flatlist-optimization.md"
},
{
"name": "navigation-patterns.md",
"path": "skills/react-native/references/navigation-patterns.md",
"content": "# Navigation Patterns\n\n...",
"raw_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/..."
}
]
}Skyll looks for reference files in these directories (relative to SKILL.md):
references/resources/docs/examples/rules/- Sibling
.mdfiles in the same directory
Only .md files are included. Binary files, images, and other formats are excluded.
Fetching references requires additional GitHub API calls:
- Without references: 1 API call per skill (for SKILL.md)
- With references: 1 + N API calls (where N = number of reference files)
To minimize API usage:
- Only request references when needed (
include_references=true) - Use a GitHub token to increase rate limits (60 → 5,000 requests/hour)
- Results are cached to avoid repeated fetches
When include_references=true, skills with references receive a ranking boost (15 points out of 100). This surfaces skills with richer documentation.
See Ranking for details.