diff --git a/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py b/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py
index ed8e1ddd..36291408 100755
--- a/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py
+++ b/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py
@@ -19,7 +19,9 @@ def validate_skill(skill_path):
         return False, "SKILL.md not found"
 
     # Read and validate frontmatter
-    content = skill_md.read_text()
+    # Explicit UTF-8: read_text() uses the locale default encoding, which is
+    # cp1252 on Windows and crashes on UTF-8 SKILL.md files (e.g. emoji).
+    content = skill_md.read_text(encoding='utf-8')
     if not content.startswith('---'):
         return False, "No YAML frontmatter found"