Skills for AI Coding Agents

Skills for AI Coding Agents#

MassGen publishes skills that let AI coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and others) invoke MassGen directly. When your agent has the MassGen skill installed, it can spin up a multi-agent run, wait for results, and apply them. Learn more about the agent skills standard at agentskills.io.

What Are Skills?#

Skills are portable instruction bundles (a folder with a SKILL.md file) that teach AI agents how to perform specific workflows. The SKILL.md format is an open standard supported by 40+ agent platforms.

The MassGen skill gives your agent four modes:

Mode

Purpose

Output

General (default)

Any task — writing, code, research, design

Winner’s deliverables + workspace files

Evaluate

Critique existing work

critique_packet.md, verdict.json, next_tasks.json

Plan

Create a structured project plan

project_plan.json with task DAG

Spec

Create a requirements specification

project_spec.json with EARS requirements

Note

The skill will walk your agent through setup if needed, but things go smoother if you already have MassGen installed, an AI provider authenticated, and a config file ready. First-time setup requires human input (provider selection, API keys). See Installation for setup instructions.

Installation#

Quick Install (All Agents)#

The fastest way to install across any supported agent:

npx skills add massgen/skills

This works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Goose, Amp, and 40+ other agents. See Vercel’s skills docs for details.

To install to a specific agent:

npx skills add massgen/skills -a claude-code
npx skills add massgen/skills -a codex
npx skills add massgen/skills -a cursor

To install to all detected agents at once:

npx skills add massgen/skills --all

Per-Agent Manual Installation#

If you prefer to clone and copy manually:

Claude Code:

# Global (all projects)
git clone https://github.com/massgen/skills.git /tmp/massgen-skills
cp -r /tmp/massgen-skills/massgen ~/.claude/skills/massgen

# Per-project (committed to your repo)
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/massgen-skills/massgen .claude/skills/massgen

Then invoke with /massgen in Claude Code.

OpenAI Codex:

git clone https://github.com/massgen/skills.git /tmp/massgen-skills
cp -r /tmp/massgen-skills/massgen ~/.codex/skills/massgen

Then invoke with $massgen in Codex.

GitHub Copilot (VS Code):

git clone https://github.com/massgen/skills.git /tmp/massgen-skills
cp -r /tmp/massgen-skills/massgen .github/skills/massgen

Then use /skills in Copilot chat.

Other agents:

Any agent supporting the SKILL.md standard can use MassGen skills. Copy the massgen/ directory from the repo into your agent’s skill discovery path (typically ~/.agents/skills/).

Prerequisites#

  1. MassGen installed (pip install massgen)

  2. At least one AI provider authenticated (API key or login-based auth like claude login)

  3. A MassGen config file (.massgen/config.yaml) — run massgen --quickstart to create one

How It Works#

When your agent invokes the MassGen skill, it follows this workflow:

  1. Scope — determine the mode (general, evaluate, plan, spec) and what the run covers

  2. Context — write a context file describing the task, constraints, and expectations

  3. Criteria — use defaults or write custom evaluation criteria

  4. Prompt — fill in the mode-specific prompt template

  5. Run — launch MassGen in --automation mode (background), optionally open the web viewer

  6. Parse — read the structured output from the winning agent

  7. Apply — ground the results in your task system and execute

The skill includes prompt templates, context file guides, and output parsing instructions for each mode. Your agent reads these reference files and follows them step by step.

Skill Contents#

The skill repo at github.com/massgen/skills contains:

massgen/
+-- SKILL.md                              # Main skill instructions
+-- references/
    +-- criteria_guide.md                  # How to write evaluation criteria
    +-- general/
    |   +-- workflow.md                    # General mode guide
    |   +-- prompt_template.md             # General prompt template
    +-- evaluate/
    |   +-- workflow.md                    # Evaluate mode guide
    |   +-- prompt_template.md             # Evaluation prompt template
    +-- plan/
    |   +-- workflow.md                    # Plan mode guide
    |   +-- prompt_template.md             # Planning prompt template
    +-- spec/
        +-- workflow.md                    # Spec mode guide
        +-- prompt_template.md             # Spec prompt template

Keeping Skills Updated#

The skills repo is automatically synced from the main MassGen repository on every merge to main.

# If installed via npx
npx skills update

# If installed via git clone
cd /tmp/massgen-skills && git pull
cp -r /tmp/massgen-skills/massgen ~/.claude/skills/massgen   # or your agent's path