/atn-manage: manage agent setups from your AI tool
/atn-manage lists, creates, changes and deletes agent setups and everything inside them, and works with the setup library, from a request you write in plain words. Run it when you want to change a setup without leaving your AI tool, for example to add an MCP server or to edit a skill while you are using it.
An agent setup is a named bundle of what your AI coding tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and setup files. /atn-manage is one of the skills of the standard Athenode setup. A skill is a reusable set of instructions that an AI tool loads when it is relevant, usually run as a slash command.
Run /atn-manage
/atn-manage [request]| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
[request] |
What to list, create, change or delete, in your own words. Optional. Without it, the skill asks what you want to manage. |
/atn-manage add an MCP server for our issue tracker/atn-manage clone the Athenode setup as "Security review"The skill works on the installed setup, which is the setup whose files are in your local project directory, unless the request names another setup of the project. For a pull and for every request about the setup library, it needs the setup named and asks when the request leaves it open.
/atn-manage acts with your project token, so it can do what your role in the project allows. Changing a setup needs the owner or editor role. The way to run a skill differs by AI tool, and the supported AI tools gives the form for each.
What /atn-manage does
- It splits your request into operations and asks you when the object or the action is unclear.
- It reads the current state of what the request touches and matches the names you gave. When a name matches nothing, or matches several things, it shows the existing names and asks which one you meant.
- It asks you to confirm every deletion, every publish and every replacement before it acts.
- It carries out the operations one at a time, in the order you gave them. If one fails, it skips the operations that depend on it and goes on with the others.
- After a change to the installed setup, it checks that the files in your local project directory were updated and names any environment variable an MCP server needs that is not set.
- It gives you the report.
Requests /atn-manage carries out
| Area | What you can ask for |
|---|---|
| Setups | List the project's setups, create an empty one, clone an existing one, rename one, change its description, delete one. Pull another setup of the project into a setup, in full or only the items you name. |
| Setup files | Browse the files of a setup, read a file, create a file or a folder, change a file's content or summary, move or rename a file, delete a file or a folder. |
| Skills | List the skills of a setup, create one, change its description, instructions or settings, rename it, remove it. |
| Agents | List the agents of a setup, create one, change its description, instructions or settings, rename it, remove it. |
| MCP servers | List the MCP servers of a setup, add one, change its fields, remove it. |
| Rules | Read the rules of a setup and change them. |
| Setup library | Browse and search the library, show an entry or one of its items, add an entry as a new setup, merge an entry into a setup, update a setup that was added from the library, publish a setup or a new version of it, change an entry's name, description, tags or public display, unpublish an entry. |
Each area has a home page that describes the feature itself: create and organise setups, pull from another setup, setup files, skills, agents, MCP servers, rules, the setup library and publishing a setup.
You install a setup, or a different one, in the terminal with npx @athenode/cli init. You like a library entry and skip a version of one in the web app. You pull from a setup of another project in the web app.
Questions /atn-manage asks
The skill stops for you at these points. Each question is worded for your request and names the exact objects it concerns.
| When | What the question contains |
|---|---|
| You ran the skill without a request | What you want to manage. |
| The request is ambiguous, or a name matches no item or several | The existing names, and which one you meant. |
| A deletion: a setup, a file or folder, a skill, an agent, an MCP server, or emptying the rules | One question that lists everything to be removed. Several deletions in one request are confirmed together. A folder with content is listed with what goes with it. |
| Unpublishing an entry | That the entry and all its versions leave the library, and that setups already added from it keep working and stop receiving updates. |
| Publishing a setup or a new version | The entry's name, description, tags, version note and the number of items it holds, and who will see them: every signed-in Athenode user, and anyone on the Athenode website. One yes covers both. |
| Turning public display on for an entry that has it off | What becomes visible on the Athenode website without an account. |
| A merge, an update or a pull that replaces anything | Which skills, agents, MCP servers, files and rules will be replaced, and that a replacement cannot be undone. |
A merge, an update or a pull that only adds what is new and replaces nothing needs no confirmation. Turning public display off needs none either. Public display of an entry says exactly what an entry shows on the Athenode website.
The question carries a warning when the change affects something the rest of your setup relies on.
| The request touches | The warning |
|---|---|
| Deleting the installed setup | The local project directory loses its skills, agents, rules and MCP servers at the next install. The skill suggests installing another setup first. |
The athenode MCP server |
Every skill of the standard setup works through it, so they stop working in directories that have this setup installed. |
The settings files under settings/ |
The workflow skills read them. The skill edits their ## Custom sections and points you to /atn-settings for everything else in them. |
| A built-in skill or agent | The built-in skills and agents call each other by name, so renaming or removing one stops the others. A built-in item that you change keeps your version when Athenode updates the standard setup. |
| The MCP, Settings, Questions or Language section of the rules | Every skill and agent of the standard setup relies on these sections. The skill keeps them unless you ask for them to be dropped. |
When no person is there to answer, for example in an unattended session, the skill performs no deletion, no publish and no replacement, and reports each of them as skipped.
What /atn-manage changes
/atn-manage changes setups in your Athenode project. Members see the change in the web app at once.
For the installed setup, the files in your local project directory are updated in the same step. A skill, agent or MCP server that was created, renamed or changed is available in your AI tool after you restart its session. For any other setup, nothing changes locally. The change reaches a directory when that setup is installed there, or at the next init in a directory that already has it.
The skill does not install a different setup. After it creates or clones a setup, or adds one from the library, it gives you the command to run, npx @athenode/cli init --setup <id-or-slug>, and reminds you to restart the session.
A token or key that you paste into an MCP server is stored as a ${VAR} reference, and the skill tells you which variable to set. A setup is shared with everyone who installs it, so the value itself belongs in the environment where each member's AI tool runs.
Publishing makes the whole setup visible to every signed-in Athenode user and turns on its public display, so the Athenode website can show the entry to anyone. It needs a paid plan, and Athenode refuses it while an MCP server of the setup holds a value typed in directly in its environment variables or headers.
The limits of the project's plan apply to what the skill creates: the number of setups in the project and the number of skills, agents and MCP servers in one setup. Plans and limits lists them.
/atn-manage leaves your specifications, your ToDo cards, your code and your git history untouched.
The report
At the end, /atn-manage reports:
- every operation it performed, with the name of the object and what changed, and the setup's name whenever it is not the installed one;
- every operation it skipped, that you declined or that failed, with the reason or the error text;
- what you do next: restart the session for created or renamed skills, agents and MCP servers of the installed setup, set the environment variables an MCP server refers to, or run
npx @athenode/cli init --setup <id-or-slug>to install a setup; - after a publish, the entry's name and version, and after a merge, an update or a pull, what was added and what was replaced.
Listings, such as the setups of the project or the skills of a setup, come as a compact table.