Getting Started

What is APM?

APM (Agent Package Manager) is the package manager and public registry for agent skills. It connects skill authors to the 34+ AI agent products that support the agentskills.io open standard — including Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, and more.

All packages use scoped names (@scope/name) to avoid collisions and provide clear provenance. The scope is derived from the GitHub repo owner for indexed packages.

Discover skills on the registry, install them with one command, and tell your agent which skills to use.

Install the CLI

npm

npm install -g @apm-cli/apm

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install orthogonalhq/apm/apm

Shell (macOS / Linux)

curl -fsSL https://apm.orthg.nl/install.sh | sh

Windows

winget install Orthogonal.APM

From source

git clone https://github.com/orthogonalhq/apm.git
cd apm/cli
cargo build --release

Quick start

1. Search for skills

Use the APM Registry for browsing skills with filters, sorting, and full-text search.

or use the CLI:

apm search "code review"

Results show the scoped name, stars, license, and description for each match:

Found 10 skill(s) matching 'code review':

  @anthropics/code-review (★ 9330 · Apache-2.0)
  Review code changes for security, performance, and correctness.
  anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins

  @cloudflare/code-review (★ 4480 · CC-BY-4.0)
  Reviews Workers and Cloudflare Developer Platform code.
  cloudflare/cloudflare-docs
  ...

2. Install a skill

apm install @anthropics/code-review

APM fetches the skill from the registry and writes it to your project:

your-project/
├── apm-lock.json
└── .skills/
    └── anthropics/
        └── code-review/
            └── SKILL.md

3. Set up agent discovery

apm init

This walks you through creating an AGENTS.md file at your project root. Every step explains what it's doing and asks for confirmation.

After setup, your AGENTS.md points agents to the locally installed @apm/init skill:

# Agent Configuration

<!-- Add project-specific instructions for AI agents here -->

<!-- apm:skills -->
## Installed Skills

See .skills/apm/init/SKILL.md for the APM skill specification.
<!-- /apm:skills -->

4. Wire up your agent config

apm init detects agent config files and offers to add an AGENTS.md reference:

Agent	Config file
Claude Code	`CLAUDE.md`
Cursor	`.cursorrules`
GitHub Copilot	`.github/copilot-instructions.md`
Gemini CLI	`GEMINI.md`
Windsurf	`.windsurfrules`

For agents that read AGENTS.md natively (most do — see State of AGENTS.md), no extra wiring is needed.

5. Manage your skills

# Update all skills to latest
apm update

# Remove a skill
apm uninstall @anthropics/code-review

# Restore skills on a fresh clone
apm install

How it works

Discover — browse apm.orthg.nl or use apm search
Install — apm install @scope/name fetches the skill and writes it to .skills/
Wire up — apm init creates AGENTS.md and links your agent configs to installed skills
Use — your agent reads AGENTS.md, sees @skill: references, and loads the corresponding SKILL.md files

APM tracks installed packages in apm-lock.json — a lockfile that includes source info, descriptions, tags, and kind for each skill. Commit it to version control for reproducible installs.

Next steps

SKILL.md Specification — understand the skill format
Wiring Agents to Skills — the @skill: convention for agent discovery
Composite Skills — compose atomic skills into domain expertise
CLI Reference — all available commands and options
Publishing — get your skills into the registry
REST API — integrate with the registry programmatically

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