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Agent Skills

SKILL GUIDE

Setting Up Agentic Projects

Prepare, audit, or migrate a repository for AI-assisted development. Create minimal project instructions and essential tool adapters while preserving existing configuration.

Agent setupsetting-up-agentic-projects
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When to use it

  • You need to prepare a new or existing repository for a coding agent.
  • Project instructions and tool configuration are duplicated, stale, or inconsistent.
  • You are adding another coding tool or refreshing instructions after an approved design change.

Workflow

  1. Choose the operating mode

    Use setup, read-only audit, migration, or refresh according to the task. Setup does not implement application features.

  2. Discover project evidence

    Inspect the actual stack, documentation, approved requirements, commands, instructions, and installed skills. Report contradictions and incomplete coverage.

  3. Create the minimal shared contract

    Keep project policy separate from reusable skills and delegated roles. Write concise instructions that link to real authoritative documents.

  4. Add only necessary adapters

    Preserve existing files and verify current official tool configuration and discovery formats before creating native adapters.

  5. Validate and report

    Check paths, commands, consistency, scope, and supported syntax. Verify native discovery if a runtime is available; otherwise mark it as untested.

Practical use cases and prompts

Preparing a project for AI-assisted development

A repository has working code and documentation but needs clear coding-agent instructions.

Prompt: Preparing a project for AI-assisted development

Use setting-up-agentic-projects in setup mode. Read existing instructions, skills, and approved project documentation. Create the smallest useful AGENTS.md and only essential adapters for tools already in use. Preserve configuration and application code. Verify paths and commands and report actual checks.

Expected output: Concise project instructions, justified adapters, and a setup report with verification limits.

Audit conflicting instructions

Several instruction files contain duplicated policies or stale references.

Prompt: Audit conflicting instructions

Use setting-up-agentic-projects in audit mode. Do not edit files. Inspect our project instructions, installed skills, and tool configuration for conflicting policies, broken links, stale assumptions, and unnecessary permissions. Report prioritized findings with file evidence and small proposed corrections.

Expected output: An ordered read-only audit with evidence and a focused remediation plan.

Add another coding tool

A team wants Claude Code alongside an existing Codex setup.

Prompt: Add another coding tool

Use setting-up-agentic-projects in migration mode. Add Claude Code alongside our existing Codex setup without duplicating project knowledge. Check current official configuration and discovery formats, preserve the original setup, and create only necessary adapters. Report native runtime checks that were not executed.

Expected output: A minimal compatible adapter and a clear account of configuration and discovery verification.

Expected outputs

  • Minimal shared project instructions referencing existing source-of-truth documents.
  • Only the required tool adapters or prioritized read-only audit findings, depending on mode.
  • A setup report distinguishing discovered facts, changes, verified paths and commands, and untested runtime behavior.

Requirements and optional helpers

  • A coding agent with Agent Skills support and permission to read the target repository.
  • Access to existing project instructions and any approved requirements, architecture, API, database, or UI documents.
  • For tool-specific adapters, identify the selected coding tool and check current official documentation. Native runtime checks require that tool to be available.
  • Audit mode is read-only. Setup changes instructions and essential configuration, not application logic.

Read-only setup inventory

Optional audit-project.mjs needs Node.js 18+ and uses a positional repository path, with optional --json. It inventories paths without reading file contents, skips secret files and directory symlinks, and reports bounded coverage.

Installation

Open a terminal in your target project and install this package. Project scope is the default; choose your agent when prompted.

Install Setting Up Agentic Projects

npx skills add https://github.com/GiovanniL30/ai-skills/tree/main/skills --skill setting-up-agentic-projects

Refresh your agent session, confirm the skill is available, and give it a concrete task. Keep the whole package, including references and helpers.

Choose an agent and installation scope →

Source and focused references

This guide summarizes the original package. Read its complete workflow and supporting references on GitHub.

Read the original SKILL.md ↗