dev-mcp-skills: Instructions file for Codex

AGENTS.md

This repository contains a skill that teaches AI coding agents how to build Appian applications. The skill content is domain knowledge — platform conventions, patterns, and gotchas — that the agent can't infer from tool schemas alone.

Git Workflow

• Work on feature branches off main. Never commit directly to main.
• Push to your fork only. Use pull requests to propose changes to the upstream repository.
• Do not force push to any shared branch.
• Do not amend commits that have already been pushed.

Content Principles

Sizing

• SKILL.md should stay under 500 lines — it's always loaded when the skill triggers
• Reference files can be longer but for files over 300 lines, include a table of contents at the top
• If a reference is growing past useful size, split into focused files and add rows to the resource reference map

Writing style

• Use imperative form for instructions
• Explain why things matter rather than piling on MUSTs and NEVERs
• Be concrete — show correct and incorrect examples
• Stay general enough to apply across projects, not narrow to one specific scenario

Tool-agnostic references

All files under skills/appian/references/ (except tools-mcp.md) must be tool-agnostic:

• Describe what to do, not which tool to call
• No MCP tool names (e.g., createRecordType, addRecordTypeRelationship)
• No CLI commands or flags
• Use generic language: "create the record type", "list fields", "get the configuration"

Only references/tools-mcp.md may reference MCP tool names. It covers patterns and non-obvious behaviors — not a catalog of available tools (the MCP schema already provides that).

Don't duplicate tool metadata

The MCP tool schemas describe parameters, types, and return values. Reference files should cover what schemas cannot: conventions, patterns, gotchas, ordering constraints, and domain knowledge.

Skill content vs. tool issues

The skill teaches durable domain knowledge — patterns and conventions that are true regardless of tool implementation. Do not encode workarounds for tool bugs or limitations in the skill. If a failure is caused by the tool itself (e.g., validation behavior that doesn't match Appian Designer, missing support for an object type), file a GitHub issue with the tool-change-proposal label instead. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the issue format.