DevCanon

A user-wide Node.js CLI and source library for portable Agent-Friendly Documentation Standard (AFDS) skills, thin agent roles, and generated Claude Code and Codex files.

DevCanon helps development projects run an AFDS-based product workflow across Claude Code and Codex while preserving one source of truth for reusable skills and agent roles.

What It Does

• Portable AFDS toolkit provides reusable skills, thin agent roles, and supporting guidance for projects adopting AFDS with GitHub Issues or Linear.
• Skills are reusable operational workflows (review checklists, debugging methodologies, planning frameworks) shared across AI tools.
• Agent roles are defined once in neutral YAML and rendered into native formats for each target.
• Sync writes installed managed outputs into user home directories via symlink or copy, with manifest-based ownership tracking.

Source files are authoritative. Generated outputs are disposable.

Quick Start

Prerequisites: Node.js >=24.0.0 and pnpm 10.33.0. The supported setup and verification scope is macOS and Linux.

Before pnpm run setup:cli, pnpm's user-global bin directory must be configured and on PATH. If pnpm reports it missing, run pnpm setup and follow pnpm's shell-reload guidance before continuing. DevCanon does not run pnpm setup or modify PATH.

# Clone into a stable location: the globally registered CLI points here, and# this checkout remains the source library and configuration root.
git clone <repo-url> devcanon
cd devcanon
pnpm install
pnpm run setup:cli
devcanon sync

setup:cli is a package setup script, not a devcanon application subcommand. It builds and globally registers the CLI from this checkout. devcanon sync is a separate application command that writes managed skills and agents; registering the CLI does not run sync.

Keep the checkout at its stable path. To run the globally registered CLI from elsewhere, select that checkout's config explicitly:

devcanon --config /absolute/path/to/devcanon.config.yaml sync

Refreshing an existing checkout

Update the stable checkout, refresh dependencies, register the updated CLI, then refresh managed outputs:

cd /absolute/path/to/devcanon
git pull
pnpm install
pnpm run setup:cli
devcanon sync

Breaking Rename From agents-manager

DevCanon does not support legacy agents-manager CLI, config, env-var, or manifest names. Existing users must uninstall with the old CLI before installing DevCanon:

agents-manager uninstall

After installing DevCanon, use:

devcanon sync

Documentation

Topic	Location
Getting started	AGENTS.md
Navigation index	MAP.md
Product requirements	docs/product-requirements/
Behavior specs	docs/specs/
Architecture	docs/arch/overview.md
Contributing	CONTRIBUTING.md
Decision records	docs/adr/
Roadmap	docs/roadmap/

Status

Active development. v1 CLI is implemented with 9 commands, 24 skills, and support for Claude Code and Codex targets.