awesome-agent-skills-mcp fails in ToolHive: list_skills unusable due to missing git + response format mismatch

[jsprof26]

Summary

When [awesome-agent-skills-mcp](https://github.com/shadowrootdev/awesome-agent-skills-mcp) is launched by ToolHive as a npm converted to Docker container, list_skills fails to provide usable results. The container cannot sync the skills repo because git is not installed (spawn git ENOENT), and the tool response format is JSON-in-text rather than structured output matching the declared outputSchema.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 (10.0.26200)
• Docker Desktop: 4.65.0
• Docker Engine: 29.2.1

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start ToolHive with awesome-agent-skills-mcp enabled (containerized).
2. Call refresh_skills or list_skills through ToolHive.
3. Inspect container logs (docker logs <container-id>).

Actual Behavior

• Container logs show git sync failure: Failed to initialize git repository: GitError: Error: spawn git ENOENT
• Attempted command includes clone of: https://github.com/VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills.git
• list_skills returns empty data ({"skills":[],"total":0}) when sync failed.
• ToolHive reports list failure / structured output mismatch (tool has outputSchema but response is not treated as structured).

Expected Behavior

• refresh_skills should successfully clone/pull the skills repository.
• list_skills should return a populated, schema-valid structured object (not JSON serialized into a text field).
• ToolHive should be able to parse the response without structured-content errors.

Evidence (from container)

Git missing in container:
docker exec <container-id> git --version -> executable not found

Relevant log lines:

• Failed to initialize git repository: GitError: Error: spawn git ENOENT
• Cloning repository from https://github.com/VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills.git...
• Repository sync failed: Failed to initialize: Error: spawn git ENOENT

Tool response observed:
{"skills":[],"total":0} via content[0].text

Suspected Root Causes

1. Container image missing git
   • Repo sync cannot run, so skills registry stays empty.
2. Tool output format mismatch
   • list_skills declares an outputSchema object but returns JSON string inside content: [{ type: "text", text: JSON.stringify(...) }], which ToolHive may not accept as structured output.

Proposed Fix

• Image fix: Include git in the awesome-agent-skills-mcp container image (persistent fix; runtime install is not durable).
• Response fix: Return schema-compatible structured output for tool calls (or ToolHive-compatible structured content), rather than JSON string embedded in text.
• Validation guard: Ensure list_skills always returns schema-safe fields even when sync fails.

Impact

• awesome-agent-skills-mcp is effectively non-functional in ToolHive for listing/refreshing skills in fresh containers.
• End users cannot discover or use skills reliably.