agent-cli AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md

Instructions for any AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, etc.) working in this repo. Humans: see README.md for the user-facing docs and ARCHITECTURE.md for the full layer-by-layer map.

What this is

agent-cli (npm: @victortomaili/agent-cli, bin: agent-cli) manages AGENTS.md-style instruction files and syncs them across every AI coding tool a user has installed. Node.js

= 22, ESM ("type": "module"), zero build step — src/cli.js runs directly.

Install / update / init

These are the commands a user (or an agent driving npm/agent-cli on a user's behalf) runs against the published package, not this checkout:

npm install -g @victortomaili/agent-cli        # install
npm update -g @victortomaili/agent-cli          # update to latest published version
agent-cli init                                  # bootstrap ~/AGENTS.md + pointer stubs (idempotent)

Don't confuse that npm update with agent-cli update / agent-cli upgrade — the latter apply shipped-default content (seed files, managed instruction blocks) to an already-installed user's ~/.agents/ brain and are unrelated to the package version.

Working in this checkout

npm install     # dependencies
npm link        # global `agent-cli` command backed by this checkout (for manual testing)
npm run check   # syntax-check every src/*.js file (= npm run lint = npm run build)
npm test        # node --test test/*.test.js

Run npm run check && npm test before considering any change done — CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs the same two commands on the ubuntu/windows × Node 22/24 matrix, and .github/workflows/publish.yml publishes to npm automatically on every main push whose package.json version isn't on the registry yet, so a broken check/test blocks a real release, not just a PR.

Conventions to preserve

• Layering (src/cli.js → src/commands/*.js → src/*.js lib; src/api/index.js is a read-only SDK over lib; src/skills/** is self-contained). Enforced by test/import-boundaries.test.js — read it before adding a new cross-module import.
• DI pattern: every command module exports registerXCommands(program, deps); src/cli.js builds deps once. Keep command files thin — parse options, call lib functions, format output.
• Cross-cutting invariants (see ARCHITECTURE.md's "do not weaken these"): atomic writes (util.js), locked config writes (cross-process CAS in config.js), path containment on any write/delete driven by untrusted input, pointer-only deletion in unlink, secrets never synced/snapshotted/searched.
• npm publish surface: only what's listed in package.json's "files" array (src, seed, README.md, LICENSE, docs/contract.md) ships in the tarball. Note the allowlist names docs/contract.md as a single path, not the docs/ folder: everything else under docs/ is a local working analysis (gitignored, see .gitignore) and must never ship. ARCHITECTURE.md and .spec/ never do — don't assume a new root-level doc is visible to an installed user.
• .spec/ — single local-only folder for the project's spec-driven-dev workflow AND internal planning notes (README.md, constitution.md, specs/, plans/, tasks/, templates/, ROADMAP.md, findings.md). Gitignored, never committed, never shipped in the tarball. The CLI's spect command points here. Don't recreate these docs at the repo root.