First workflows

After initialization, you do not need to memorize Agents Pack commands. Talk to Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor about the outcome you want — or run the same operations yourself with the CLI.

Every installation includes the required ap-manage-agents-pack skill. It teaches your coding agent to inspect the installation, preview changes, use the CLI as the source of truth, and verify the result. It must not work around lifecycle protections or edit generated provider copies directly.

For a fuller guide, see Manage via coding agent.

Check that everything is healthy

Ask:

Check my Agents Pack installation and explain whether everything is healthy.
Do not change anything.

Or run:

agents-pack status

Status is read-only. It reports scope, pack version, selected agents, components, and whether every managed output is clean, missing, modified, or malformed.

Browse what is available

Ask:

Show me which frontend-related components are available and recommend which
ones fit this project.

Or run:

agents-pack list
agents-pack list --available --kind skill
agents-pack list --installed

Browse the docs skill catalog and subagent catalog for descriptions.

Install an official skill

Ask:

Install the ap-frontend-design skill. Preview the change first and wait for my
approval before applying it.

Or run:

agents-pack install ap-frontend-design --dry-run
agents-pack install ap-frontend-design --yes

See Install and remove components.

Check for content updates

Ask:

Check whether a new Agents Pack content version is available. Summarize the
release notes, but do not update anything yet.

Or run:

agents-pack update --check

CLI upgrades and content-pack updates are separate. Content updates do not replace the agents-pack executable. See Update, pin, and roll back.

Create a portable skill

Every installation also includes the required ap-create-new-skill skill. Ask:

Create a reusable Agents Pack skill named deploy-app. It should guide an agent
through safely deploying this project to staging or production, including
preflight checks and post-deployment verification.

Or scaffold with the CLI:

agents-pack create skill deploy-app \
  --description "Deploy this application safely. Use for staging or production deployment." \
  --yes

Edit the canonical source under .agents-pack/user/ (or ~/.agents-pack/user/ for global scope), then synchronize:

agents-pack sync --dry-run
agents-pack sync --yes
agents-pack status

Names you create cannot use the reserved ap- prefix. See Create user components.

Fork an official component

If an official skill is close but should become yours:

Fork ap-debug into a user-owned skill named my-debug, then show me which
canonical file I should customize.

Or:

agents-pack fork ap-debug --name my-debug --dry-run
agents-pack fork ap-debug --name my-debug --yes

See Fork and customize.

If the agent does not select the skill automatically

Name it explicitly:

Use ap-manage-agents-pack to check for available updates and explain what
would change. Do not apply the update.

Use ap-create-new-skill to create a portable skill for reviewing database
migrations before deployment.

These are skills, not special chat commands. The exact way your coding agent shows or invokes skills may differ, but the natural-language request can stay the same across Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor.

When to use the CLI directly

Running the CLI yourself is useful when:

• you want to see or control each exact command;
• you are scripting setup or maintenance;
• your coding agent is not available; or
• you are diagnosing a lifecycle or ownership problem.

Full command options are in the CLI reference. If something goes wrong, see Troubleshooting.