AgentSync

A fast, portable CLI tool for synchronizing AI agent configurations and MCP servers across multiple AI coding assistants using symbolic links.

Why AgentSync?

Different AI coding tools expect configuration files in various locations:

Tool	Instructions	Commands	Skills
Claude Code	`CLAUDE.md`	`.claude/commands/`	`.claude/skills/`
GitHub Copilot	`.github/copilot-instructions.md`	-	-
Gemini CLI	`GEMINI.md`	`.gemini/commands/`	`.gemini/skills/`
Cursor	`.cursor/rules/agentsync.mdc`	-	`.cursor/skills/`
VS Code	-	-	-
OpenCode	`OPENCODE.md`	`.opencode/command/`	`.opencode/skills/`
OpenAI Codex	`AGENTS.md`	-	`.codex/skills/`

AgentSync maintains a single source of truth in .agents/ and creates symlinks to all required locations.

Features

🔗 Symlinks over copies - Changes propagate instantly
📝 TOML configuration - Human-readable, easy to maintain
📋 Gitignore management - Automatically updates .gitignore
🛡️ Safe - Automatically backs up existing files before replacing them
🖥️ Cross-platform - Linux, macOS, Windows
🚀 CI-friendly - Gracefully skips when binary unavailable
⚡ Fast - Single static binary, no runtime dependencies
🧩 Curated skills - Install from the dallay/agents-skills collection or external providers

Catalog validation

AgentSync ships a full catalog installation E2E check that validates every skill entry can still be resolved, installed, and registered correctly.

GitHub Actions workflow: Catalog E2E
Manual run: Actions → Catalog E2E → Run workflow
Scheduled run: every Monday at 08:00 UTC
Local run:

git clone https://github.com/dallay/agents-skills ../agents-skills
export AGENTSYNC_LOCAL_SKILLS_REPO="$(pwd)/../agents-skills"
RUN_E2E=1 cargo test --test test_catalog_integration -- --ignored --nocapture

If you already keep agents-skills as a sibling checkout next to this repository, you can skip the environment variable and let the test auto-discover that sibling path instead.

This check is intentionally separate from normal CI because it depends on external networks and third-party skill repositories.

Installation

Node.js Package Managers (Recommended)

If you have Node.js (>=18) installed, the easiest way to install AgentSync is through a package manager.

Global Installation

# Using npm
npm install -g @dallay/agentsync

# Using pnpm
pnpm add -g @dallay/agentsync

# Using yarn (Classic v1)
yarn global add @dallay/agentsync

# Using bun
bun i -g @dallay/agentsync

One-off Execution

If you want to run AgentSync without a permanent global installation:

# Using npx (npm)
npx @dallay/agentsync apply

# Using dlx (pnpm)
pnpm dlx @dallay/agentsync apply

# Using dlx (yarn v2+)
yarn dlx @dallay/agentsync apply

# Using bunx (bun)
bunx @dallay/agentsync apply

Local Installation (Dev Dependency)

# Using npm
npm install --save-dev @dallay/agentsync

# Using pnpm
pnpm add -D @dallay/agentsync

# Using yarn
yarn add -D @dallay/agentsync

# Using bun
bun add -d @dallay/agentsync

From crates.io (Rust)

If you have Rust installed, you can install AgentSync directly from crates.io:

cargo install agentsync

From GitHub Releases (Pre-built Binaries)

Visit the GitHub Releases page to find the latest version number and correct platform identifier for your system.

To install via terminal, you can use the following script (be sure to replace the <version> placeholder with a real tag, e.g., 1.28.0):

# Define version and platform
VERSION="<version>"
# Detect architecture (macOS)
PLATFORM=$([ "$(uname -m)" = "arm64" ] && echo "aarch64-apple-darwin" || echo "x86_64-apple-darwin")
# Or specify manually for Linux, e.g., x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
# PLATFORM="x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"
TARBALL="agentsync-${VERSION}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz"

# Download binary and checksum
curl -LO "https://github.com/dallay/agentsync/releases/download/v${VERSION}/${TARBALL}"
curl -LO "https://github.com/dallay/agentsync/releases/download/v${VERSION}/${TARBALL}.sha256"

# Verify integrity
if command -v sha256sum >/dev/null; then
  sha256sum --check "${TARBALL}.sha256"
else
  shasum -a 256 --check "${TARBALL}.sha256"
fi

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "Error: Checksum verification failed!"
  exit 1
fi

# Extract and install
tar xzf "${TARBALL}"
sudo mv agentsync-*/agentsync /usr/local/bin/

From Source (Requires Rust 1.89+)

Install directly from the GitHub repository (requires Node.js 22.22.0+ and Rust 1.89+):

cargo install --git https://github.com/dallay/agentsync

Or clone and build manually:

git clone https://github.com/dallay/agentsync
cd agentsync
cargo build --release

# The binary will be available at ./target/release/agentsync

Quick Start

New Projects

Initialize configuration in your project:

cd your-project
agentsync init

This creates .agents/agentsync.toml with a default configuration.

Existing Projects with Agent Files

If you already have agent configuration files scattered across your project (like CLAUDE.md, .cursor/, or .github/copilot-instructions.md), use the interactive wizard:

cd your-project
agentsync init --wizard

The wizard will scan for existing files, let you select which to migrate, and set up everything automatically.

Edit the configuration to match your needs (see Configuration)
Apply the configuration:

agentsync apply

Add to your project setup (e.g., package.json):

{
  "scripts": {
    "prepare": "agentsync apply || true"
  }
}

Team workflow note

AgentSync defaults to managed .gitignore mode ([gitignore].enabled = true), which is the recommended starting point for most teams. If your team intentionally wants to commit AgentSync-managed destinations instead, treat [gitignore].enabled = false as an explicit opt-out workflow. See the canonical guide: https://dallay.github.io/agentsync/guides/gitignore-team-workflows/

If you run AgentSync from Windows and need native symlink prerequisites, WSL guidance, or recovery steps, use the dedicated setup guide: https://dallay.github.io/agentsync/guides/windows-symlink-setup/

If your team wants agentsync apply to run after branch switches, merges, or rebases, use the Git hook automation guide for Lefthook, Husky, simple-git-hooks, and native hook examples: https://dallay.github.io/agentsync/guides/git-hook-automation/

Usage

# Initialize a new configuration
agentsync init

# Initialize with interactive wizard (for existing projects with agent files)
agentsync init --wizard

# Apply configuration (create symlinks)
agentsync apply

# Clean existing symlinks before applying
agentsync apply --clean

# Remove all managed symlinks
agentsync clean

# Use a custom config file
agentsync apply --config /path/to/config.toml

# Dry run (show what would be done without making changes)
agentsync apply --dry-run

# Skip gitignore reconciliation for this run only
agentsync apply --no-gitignore

# Filter by agent
agentsync apply --agents claude,copilot

# Verbose output
agentsync apply --verbose

# Show status of managed symlinks
agentsync status

# Run diagnostic and health check
agentsync doctor [--project-root <path>]

# Manage skills
agentsync skill install <skill-id>
agentsync skill update <skill-id>
agentsync skill uninstall <skill-id>

Status

Verify the state of symlinks managed by AgentSync. Useful for local verification and CI.

agentsync status [--project-root <path>] [--json]

--project-root <path>: Optional. Path to the project root to locate the agentsync config.
--json: Output machine-readable JSON (pretty-printed).

Exit codes: 0 = no problems, 1 = problems detected (CI-friendly)

Configuration

Configuration is stored in .agents/agentsync.toml:

# Source directory (relative to this config file)
source_dir = "."

# Optional: compress AGENTS.md and point symlinks to the compressed file
# compress_agents_md = false

# Default agents to run when --agents is not specified.
# If empty, all enabled agents will be processed.
default_agents = ["claude", "copilot"]

# Gitignore management
[gitignore]
enabled = true
marker = "AI Agent Symlinks"
# Additional entries to add to .gitignore (target destinations are added automatically)
entries = []

# Agent definitions
[agents.claude]
enabled = true
description = "Claude Code - Anthropic's AI coding assistant"

[agents.claude.targets.instructions]
source = "AGENTS.md"
destination = "CLAUDE.md"
type = "symlink"

[agents.claude.targets.commands]
source = "command"
destination = ".claude/commands"
type = "symlink-contents"
pattern = "*.agent.md"

MCP Support (Model Context Protocol)

AgentSync can automatically generate MCP configuration files for supported agents (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, VS Code, OpenCode).

This allows you to define MCP servers once in agentsync.toml and have them synchronized to all agent-specific config files.

[mcp]
enabled = true

# Strategy for existing files: "merge" (default) or "overwrite"
# "merge" preserves existing servers but overwrites conflicts with TOML config
merge_strategy = "merge"

# Define servers once
[mcp_servers.filesystem]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "."]

[mcp_servers.git]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-git", "--repository", "."]

# Optional fields:
# env = { "KEY" = "VALUE" }
# disabled = false

Supported Agents (canonical)

AgentSync supports the following agents and will synchronize corresponding files/locations. This list is canonical — keep it in sync with src/mcp.rs (authoritative).

Claude Code — .mcp.json (agent id: claude)
GitHub Copilot — .vscode/mcp.json (agent id: copilot)
OpenAI Codex CLI — .codex/config.toml (agent id: codex) — TOML format with [mcp_servers.<name>] tables. AgentSync maps headers to Codex http_headers.
Gemini CLI — .gemini/settings.json (agent id: gemini) — AgentSync will add trust: true when generating Gemini configs.
Cursor — .cursor/mcp.json (agent id: cursor)
VS Code — .vscode/mcp.json (agent id: vscode)
OpenCode — opencode.json (agent id: opencode)

AgentSync also supports 32+ agents (7 native MCP agents and 25+ configurable agents) including Windsurf, Cline, Amazon Q, Aider, RooCode, Trae, and more. See the full list in the documentation.

See the MCP Integration Guide for formatter details and merge behavior.

Merge Behavior

When merge_strategy = "merge":

AgentSync reads the existing config file (if it exists).
It adds servers defined in agentsync.toml.
Conflict Resolution: If a server name exists in both, the definition in agentsync.toml wins and overwrites the existing one.
Existing servers NOT in agentsync.toml are preserved.

Target Types

Type	Description
`symlink`	Create a symlink to the source file/directory
`symlink-contents`	Create symlinks for each item in the source directory
`nested-glob`	Recursively discover files and create symlinks for each match
`module-map`	Map centrally-managed source files to module directories

The symlink-contents type optionally supports a pattern field (glob pattern like *.md) to filter which items to link.

Nested Glob Target (`nested-glob`)

The nested-glob type discovers files matching a recursive glob pattern and creates a symlink for each discovered file. This is ideal for monorepos and multi-module projects where different subdirectories contain their own AGENTS.md files.

[agents.claude.targets.nested]
# Root directory to search (relative to the project root)
source = "."

# Glob pattern – supports ** for multi-level directory matching
pattern = "**/AGENTS.md"

# Paths to exclude (matched against each file's path relative to source)
exclude = [
    ".agents/**",
    "node_modules/**",
    "**/target/**",
    "**/build/**",
    "**/dist/**",
    "**/.git/**",
]

# Destination template – placeholders replaced for each discovered file:
#   {relative_path}  parent directory relative to `source`  (e.g. clients/agent-runtime)
#                    For files at the root of `source`, this is "." (not empty)
#   {file_name}      file name                               (e.g. AGENTS.md)
#   {stem}           file name without extension             (e.g. AGENTS)
#   {ext}            file extension without leading dot      (e.g. md)
destination = "{relative_path}/CLAUDE.md"

type = "nested-glob"

Given the structure:

project-root/
├── .agents/
│   └── AGENTS.md          # excluded by .agents/**
├── clients/
│   └── agent-runtime/
│       └── AGENTS.md      # → clients/agent-runtime/CLAUDE.md
└── modules/
    └── core-kmp/
        └── AGENTS.md      # → modules/core-kmp/CLAUDE.md

AgentSync would create:

clients/agent-runtime/CLAUDE.md → symlink to clients/agent-runtime/AGENTS.md
modules/core-kmp/CLAUDE.md → symlink to modules/core-kmp/AGENTS.md

Project Structure

.agents/
├── agentsync.toml      # Configuration file (source of truth for MCP)
├── AGENTS.md           # Main agent instructions (single source)
├── command/            # Agent commands
│   ├── review.agent.md
│   └── test.agent.md
├── skills/             # Shared knowledge/skills
│   └── kotlin/
│       └── SKILL.md
└── prompts/            # Reusable prompts
    └── code-review.prompt.md

After running agentsync apply:

project-root/
├── CLAUDE.md           → .agents/AGENTS.md
├── GEMINI.md           → .agents/AGENTS.md
├── AGENTS.md           → .agents/AGENTS.md
├── .mcp.json           (Generated from agentsync.toml)
├── .claude/
│   ├── commands/       → symlinks to .agents/command/*.agent.md
│   └── skills/         → symlinks to .agents/skills/*
├── .gemini/
│   ├── settings.json   (Generated from agentsync.toml)
│   ├── commands/       → symlinks to .agents/command/*.agent.md
│   └── skills/         → symlinks to .agents/skills/*
└── .github/
    ├── copilot-instructions.md → .agents/AGENTS.md
    └── agents/         → symlinks to .agents/command/*.agent.md

CI/CD Integration

AgentSync gracefully handles CI environments where the binary isn't available:

{
  "scripts": {
    "agents:sync": "pnpm exec agentsync apply",
    "prepare": "lefthook install && pnpm run agents:sync"
  }
}

The symlinks are primarily for local development. CI builds typically don't need them.

Installing in CI

If you need agentsync in CI, you can download the latest version automatically using jq for robust parsing:

- name: Install agentsync
  env:
    GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  run: |
    # Fetch latest version using GitHub API and jq
    LATEST_TAG=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $GH_TOKEN" \
      https://api.github.com/repos/dallay/agentsync/releases/latest | jq -r '.tag_name')
    
    if [ "$LATEST_TAG" == "null" ] || [ -z "$LATEST_TAG" ]; then
      echo "Error: Failed to fetch latest release tag"
      exit 1
    fi
    
    VERSION=${LATEST_TAG#v}
    PLATFORM="x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"
    
    curl -LO "https://github.com/dallay/agentsync/releases/download/${LATEST_TAG}/agentsync-${VERSION}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz"
    tar xzf agentsync-${VERSION}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz
    sudo mv agentsync-*/agentsync /usr/local/bin/

Skills

AgentSync includes a curated skill catalog with 100+ skills across 40+ technologies. Skills are small bundles of AI-agent instructions that can be installed into your project.

dallay/agents-skills — Canonical home for all dallay-maintained skills. Community contributions welcome via PR.
External providers — Skills from Angular, Vercel, Cloudflare, Expo, Stripe, and many more are resolved from their respective repositories.

# Detect project technologies and get skill recommendations
agentsync skill suggest

# Install a skill
agentsync skill install docker-expert

# Install all recommended skills non-interactively
agentsync skill suggest --install --all

See the Skills Guide for full documentation.

Getting Started (Development)

This project is a monorepo containing a Rust core and a JavaScript/TypeScript wrapper.

Repository Structure

src/: Core logic and CLI implementation in Rust.
npm/agentsync/: TypeScript wrapper used for NPM distribution.
website/docs/: Documentation site built with Starlight.
tests/: Integration tests for the CLI.

Prerequisites

Rust (1.89+ recommended)
Node.js (v22.22.0+ recommended for development)
pnpm

Setup

Install JavaScript dependencies:
```
pnpm install
```
Build the Rust binary:
```
cargo build
```

Common Commands

This project uses a Makefile to orchestrate common tasks.

Run Rust tests:
```
make rust-test
```
Run JavaScript tests:
```
make js-test
```
Build all components:
```
make all
```
Run full verification (lint + build + test):
```
make verify-all
```

Lint the code:

# Rust
cargo clippy
# JavaScript/TypeScript
pnpm run biome:check

Format the code:
```
make fmt
```

Release Process

Releases are managed via semantic-release and GitHub Actions. To trigger a dry run locally:

pnpm run release:dry-run

Troubleshooting

`PNPM_NO_MATURE_MATCHING_VERSION`

If pnpm install fails with this error, it's likely due to a strict package release age policy. You can try installing with --ignore-scripts or wait for the package to "mature" in the registry.

Lefthook installation failure

If pnpm install fails during the lefthook setup, you can try:

pnpm install --ignore-scripts

Build failures (Rust)

Ensure you have the latest stable Rust toolchain installed. You can update with rustup update stable.

Symlink creation fails on Windows

Use the dedicated Windows setup guide for native prerequisites, WSL positioning, verification, and recovery steps: https://dallay.github.io/agentsync/guides/windows-symlink-setup/

Inspiration

Ruler - Similar concept but copies files instead of using symlinks

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on how to get started.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 466 Commits
.agents		.agents
.github		.github
npm		npm
openspec		openspec
scripts		scripts
src		src
tests		tests
website/docs		website/docs
.dockerignore		.dockerignore
.gitignore		.gitignore
.nvmrc		.nvmrc
.release-please-manifest.json		.release-please-manifest.json
.rustfmt.toml		.rustfmt.toml
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md		CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
Dockerfile		Dockerfile
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
biome.json		biome.json
codecov.yml		codecov.yml
docs		docs
lefthook.yml		lefthook.yml
package.json		package.json
pnpm-lock.yaml		pnpm-lock.yaml
pnpm-workspace.yaml		pnpm-workspace.yaml
release-please-config.json		release-please-config.json
renovate.json		renovate.json
rust-toolchain.toml		rust-toolchain.toml
sonar-project.properties		sonar-project.properties
spec.patch		spec.patch

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AgentSync

Why AgentSync?

Features

Catalog validation

Installation

Node.js Package Managers (Recommended)

Global Installation

One-off Execution

Local Installation (Dev Dependency)

From crates.io (Rust)

From GitHub Releases (Pre-built Binaries)

From Source (Requires Rust 1.89+)

Quick Start

New Projects

Existing Projects with Agent Files

Team workflow note

Usage

Status

Configuration

MCP Support (Model Context Protocol)

Supported Agents (canonical)

Merge Behavior

Target Types

Nested Glob Target (nested-glob)

Project Structure

CI/CD Integration

Installing in CI

Skills

Getting Started (Development)

Repository Structure

Prerequisites

Setup

Common Commands

Release Process

Troubleshooting

PNPM_NO_MATURE_MATCHING_VERSION

Lefthook installation failure

Build failures (Rust)

Symlink creation fails on Windows

Inspiration

Contributing

License

About

Topics

Resources

License

Code of conduct

Contributing

Security policy

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Releases 57

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Nested Glob Target (`nested-glob`)

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