Skills Reference

For AI agents: the documentation index is at llms.txt (full corpus: llms-full.txt). A markdown source for this page is /agent-skills/setup.md.

Reference for installing Arete agent skills manually. For an overview of how skills, the CLI, and agent.md fit together, see Agent Skills.

The preferred route is a4 init, which installs the skills for every coding agent it detects (and writes arete.toml, AGENTS.md, and MCP config at the same time):

a4 init -y                        # project scope, all detected agents
a4 init -y --agents cursor        # one agent
a4 init -y --global               # user scope instead of the project
a4 init -y --no-skills            # everything except skills

a4 init runs npx skills add AreteA4/skills under the hood, so it needs Node.js for this step; without npx it reports skills: skipped and continues. Pin a skills version with --skills-ref <git ref>.

Manual fallback, the universal install command (auto-detects your editor):

npx skills add AreteA4/skills

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Per-Editor Installation

Cursor

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent cursor

Files are created in .agents/skills/:

.agents/skills/
├── arete/SKILL.md
├── arete-streams/SKILL.md
├── arete-programs/SKILL.md
├── arete-stack-authoring/SKILL.md
└── arete-deploy/SKILL.md

Allow CLI access

When Cursor asks to run a4 explore, approve it.

Claude Code

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent claude-code

Files are created in .claude/skills/:

.claude/skills/
├── arete/SKILL.md
├── arete-streams/SKILL.md
├── arete-programs/SKILL.md
├── arete-stack-authoring/SKILL.md
└── arete-deploy/SKILL.md

You can also set project-level context in CLAUDE.md at the project root.

Windsurf

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent windsurf

Files are created in .windsurf/skills/:

.windsurf/skills/
├── arete/SKILL.md
├── arete-streams/SKILL.md
├── arete-programs/SKILL.md
├── arete-stack-authoring/SKILL.md
└── arete-deploy/SKILL.md

OpenCode

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent opencode

Files are created in .agents/skills/. You can also load skills directly using the /skill command in OpenCode.

GitHub Copilot

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent github-copilot

Files are created in .agents/skills/.

Cline

npx skills add AreteA4/skills --agent cline

Files are created in .cline/skills/.

Other

npx skills supports 35+ agents:

Agent	Flag
Codex	--agent codex
Gemini CLI	--agent gemini-cli
Roo Code	--agent roo
Goose	--agent goose
Continue	--agent continue

If your editor isn’t listed, manually copy the SKILL.md files from the skills repository into whatever directory your editor reads custom context from.

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Verifying Installation

Ask your agent:

What stacks are available on Arete? Show me the entities and fields for the ore stack.

The agent should run a4 explore --json, then a4 explore ore --json, and present the entity names, field paths, and types. If it doesn’t recognise Arete commands, run a4 doctor — the agents.<id>.skills check names the missing skill directory and the exact install command — or check that the skill files are in the correct directory for your editor.

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Updating Skills

a4 init -y                         # update and migrate the complete project setup
a4 doctor --fix                    # re-run any writer reported by doctor
npx skills add AreteA4/skills      # manual fallback for a fresh skills-only install

a4 init -y also removes legacy arete-consume and arete-build entries when the skills lockfile proves they came from AreteA4/skills; it does not remove unrecorded or differently sourced skills with those names. Dynamic schemas and operations still come from exact a4 explore descriptors, a4 know, and generated types rather than a copied skill snapshot.