Paks

Package Manager for Agent Skills

Introduction

What are Paks?

Paks are the first package manager for Agent Skills, they are reusable instruction sets that help agents follow your way of working across agents like Stakpak, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, Goose, and more.

Why Agent Skills Need Paks?

AI coding agents are powerful, but they need context. Skills provide that context, coding standards, deployment procedures, API patterns, and domain knowledge. while Paks makes it easy to:

• Share expertise: Package your team's best practices as installable skills

• Stay consistent: Install the same skills across all your Agents

• Build on others' work: Discover and use community created skills

• Version and iterate: Semantic versioning for skill updates

Installation

From Source (Rust)

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/stakpak/paks.git
cd paks

# Build the CLI
cargo build --release -p paks-cli

# The binary will be at ./target/release/paks
# Move it to your PATH
cp ./target/release/paks ~/.local/bin/

Verify Installation

paks --version
paks --help

Quick Start

1. Create Your First Skill

# Create a new skill
paks create my-awesome-skill

# Or with optional directories
paks create my-awesome-skill --with-scripts --with-references

This generates:

my-awesome-skill/
├── SKILL.md          # Skill manifest and instructions
├── scripts/          # (optional) Helper scripts
├── references/       # (optional) Reference documentation
└── assets/           # (optional) Static assets

2. Edit Your Skill

The SKILL.md file is the heart of your skill. It uses YAML frontmatter for metadata and Markdown for instructions:

---
name: my-awesome-skill
description: A skill that helps with awesome things
version: 0.1.0
license: MIT
keywords:
  - awesome
  - productivity
---

# My Awesome Skill

## When to use this skill

Describe when this skill should be activated.

## Instructions

Add your instructions here. The AI agent will follow these
when the skill is active.

3. Validate Your Skill

paks validate my-awesome-skill

# Strict mode (warnings become errors)
paks validate my-awesome-skill --strict

4. Install Skills

# Install from registry
paks install kubernetes-deploy

# Install for a specific agent
paks install kubernetes-deploy --agent claude-code

# Install from git
paks install https://github.com/user/skill-repo.git

# Install specific version
paks install kubernetes-deploy --version 1.2.0

# Force reinstall
paks install kubernetes-deploy --force

5. Publish Your Skill

# Dry run first
paks publish my-awesome-skill --dry-run

# Publish with version bump
paks publish my-awesome-skill --bump patch

# Publish (requires login)
paks login
paks publish my-awesome-skill

Configuration

Paks stores configuration at ~/.config/paks/config.toml:

# Default agent when --agent is not specified
default_agent = "stakpak"

# Custom agents
[agents.my-custom-agent]
name = "My Custom Agent"
skills_dir = "/path/to/skills"
description = "Custom agent for my workflow"

# Registry configuration
[registries.default]
url = "https://registry.paks.dev"

Choosing Your Agent

paks agent list              # List configured agents
paks agent add <name> -d <dir>  # Add custom agent
paks agent remove <name>     # Remove custom agent
paks agent default <name>    # Set default agent
paks agent show [name]       # Show agent details

Built-in Agents:

Agent	Skills Directory
stakpak	~/.stakpak/skills
claude-code	~/.claude/skills
cursor	~/.cursor/skills
vscode	~/.vscode/skills
copilot	~/.config/github-copilot/skills
goose	~/.config/goose/skills
opencode	~/.config/opencode/skills

Examples:

# Add a custom agent
paks agent add my-agent --dir ~/my-agent/skills

# Set as default
paks agent default my-agent

# View all agents
paks agent show

Authentication

paks login [--token <TOKEN>]  # Login to registry
paks logout                    # Logout from registry

Need Support Creating Your First Pak?

If this is your first time writing a Pak, you don’t have to figure it out alone.

Our community is actively building and sharing skills, and we’re happy to help you:

• Write your first SKILL.md

• Review structure and metadata

• Decide what belongs in a Pak (and what doesn’t)

• Validate and publish with confidence

Join the Stakpak Discord to ask questions, get feedback, and see how others are using Paks

Join the community: https://discord.gg/QTZjETP7GB

Contribute

We welcome contributions! Here's how to get started:

1. Fork the repository

2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')

4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)

5. Open a Pull Request

Guidelines

• Follow the existing code style

• Add tests for new functionality

• Update documentation as needed

• Keep commits atomic and well-described