AI skills and plugins

The Cratis Stack

Teach your assistant the Cratis way

A general-purpose assistant knows C# and TypeScript, but it does not automatically know why a Cratis command lives beside its fact, why a projection consumes events instead of another read model, or why generated proxies should never be hand-edited. Cratis skills provide that missing framework context as reviewed workflows instead of another prompt you have to remember.

One behavior, several native packages

Cratis authors canonical skills in Cratis/AI. Approved exact bytes are projected into the generated Cratis/AI.Distribution repository. Each target receives the manifest and discovery layout it expects, while the skill instructions, references, assets, and licenses remain byte-identical.

This avoids behavior forks. A projection skill should not teach one architecture in Claude and another in Copilot merely because their package manifests differ.

Fixture-only distribution

The generated repository currently proves packaging, byte parity, lifecycle smoke, canary/rollback, and protected generation with a sanitized fixture. It is not a supported installation target and contains no approved real public skill. Do not install its main branch.

Public packages stay passive

The planned public package contains portable Agent Skills and their static references, assets, and licenses. It excludes executable extensions, lifecycle scripts, credentials, project facts, authoring evals, engineering hooks, agents, prompts, and repository tooling.

Executable Chronicle operations belong to the documented CLI and Chronicle MCP surfaces, with their own authorization and confirmation boundaries. They are not smuggled into a passive coding-skills package.

Skills guide complete workflows

Skills are the high-value pieces: your assistant invokes one when a request matches and follows a Cratis workflow instead of improvising.

• event-modeling — settle commands, facts, streams, state views, reactions, compliance, and scenarios before implementation.
• new-vertical-slice — build an application behavior end to end through backend, specs, frontend, documentation, and gates.
• add-concept, add-projection, add-reactor, add-business-rule, add-ef-migration — implement one focused Cratis artifact by convention.
• write-specs, write-documentation — preserve behavior or explain the product through the repository’s preferred structure.
• review-code, review-security, review-performance — review against Cratis architecture and quality boundaries.
• diagnose-slice and inspect-running-chronicle — separate source-code diagnosis from authorized running-store inspection.

Framework and client repositories select a different profile from Cratis applications. A skill reads the repository profile before applying application vertical-slice conventions.

Internal engineering behavior is separate

Cratis maintainers currently have repository-local rules, agents, prompts, and hooks in Cratis-owned repositories. Those engineering artifacts can coordinate specialists, enforce repository gates, and carry contribution conventions, but they are not part of the planned public passive package.

See Using AI as a Cratis maintainer for that workflow.

Do not copy configuration between repositories

The old all-to-all propagation model is frozen. Copying .ai, .claude, .github, .agents, or .pi trees creates mixed versions and lets a consuming repository become an accidental distributor.

The replacement uses immutable generated releases and version pins. A consuming repository owns only its project context and minimal host bootstraps. Updating or rolling back changes the shared version without overwriting project facts.

Trust and distribution explains the approval, generation, canary, rollback, and retirement gates in detail.

Get the operating tools today

Portable coding skills remain gated, but the documented operating workflow is available now:

1. follow the CLI getting-started guide;
2. run cratis init in your project to generate the supported CLI context;
3. connect Chronicle MCP when your host and authorization policy allow it.

Read Start using AI with Cratis for the guided setup and AI ecosystem support for host-by-host status.

Where to go next

Start using AI

Set up the available operating tools and choose the right coding-skills path.

Ecosystem support

Compare generated formats and release gates across supported hosts.

Cratis maintainers

Use repository-local skills and gates without restarting propagation.

Code analysis

See the compiler and lint gates that verify contracts independently of the assistant.