The standard Athenode setup

The standard Athenode setup contains 7 skills, 10 agents, 1 rules text, 1 MCP server and 5 settings files, listed here with what each one does and how updates to the standard setup reach your project's copy.

An agent setup is a named bundle of what your AI coding tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and setup files. The standard setup carries Athenode's workflow. Every new project starts with its own copy of it, named "Athenode", and the setup library shows the standard setup as its first entry, marked Standard. Agent setups explains how the copy, the installed setup and your other setups relate.

Skills in the standard setup

A skill is a reusable set of instructions that an AI tool loads when it is relevant, usually run as a slash command such as /atn-mindmap. The way to run a skill differs by AI tool, and the supported AI tools gives the form for each.

Skill	What it does	Reference
/atn-settings	Asks how agents should test, review and use git in this project and saves the answers as the workflow settings. You run it once after the first install and again whenever the settings should change.	Settings
/atn-mindmap	Runs a mind map: your AI agent asks rounds of questions and turns your answers into a specification with the status Prepared. It starts a specification or continues an existing one.	Mind map
/atn-decompose	Breaks a specification down into one level of stages, each a sub-specification of its own, and links the stages with blockers in build order.	Decompose
/atn-apply	Implements a prepared specification or subtree: your AI agent plans, implements and reviews each leaf specification in the order the blockers allow, with tests and git handled as the workflow settings say.	Apply
/atn-todo-enqueue	Adds one ToDo card from the current session, with its type, priority and open questions.	Add a card
/atn-todo-dequeue	Works through the open ToDo cards one by one. Each card becomes a specification, is carried out directly, is skipped or is dismissed.	Card queue
/atn-manage	Lists, creates, changes and deletes setups and their skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and files, and works with the setup library.	Manage setups

The Athenode workflow describes the order in which you meet the skills and what each one needs and produces.

Agents in the standard setup

An agent is a specialist that an AI tool can hand work to (a subagent in most AI tools). The skills of the standard setup hand work to these 10 agents, and their names appear in your AI tool while a skill runs. You do not run them yourself.

Agent	What it does	Works for
spec-placement-researcher	Finds the best parent for a specification that is about to be created, or proposes placing it at the top level of the specification tree.	/atn-mindmap
spec-feasibility-analyst	Checks a specification against your codebase for feasibility, complexity and pitfalls.	/atn-mindmap, /atn-decompose, /atn-apply
spec-dependency-researcher	Checks a specification against the rest of the specification tree for dependencies, overlaps, conflicts and candidates for blockers.	/atn-mindmap, /atn-decompose
spec-decomposer	Proposes how to break a specification into one level of stages when you choose "Decompose into stages" at the end of a mind map.	/atn-mindmap
spec-decomposition-finalizer	Rewrites each draft stage from its answered questions and fresh research, sets it to Prepared and links it to its blockers.	/atn-decompose
spec-implementation-planner	Verifies that a leaf specification is feasible and records its implementation plan, which you read in the Plan tab of the specification.	/atn-apply
spec-implementer	Writes the code for a leaf specification from its implementation plan, and applies the findings of a review.	/atn-apply
spec-implementation-reviewer	Reviews implemented leaf specifications against their specifications and your code review settings, then approves each one or reports findings.	/atn-apply
todo-implementer	Carries out a ToDo card directly in the code, with no specification and no recorded plan, and applies the findings of a review.	/atn-todo-dequeue
todo-reviewer	Reviews the code written for a card against the card, its answers and your code review settings.	/atn-todo-dequeue

spec-implementer and todo-implementer are the two agents that write code in your repository. The two researchers, the feasibility analyst and spec-decomposer read and report, and change neither your code nor your specifications.

Rules in the standard setup

Rules are the instructions every agent in a setup follows. The rules of the standard setup have five sections.

Section	What it makes every agent do
MCP	Reach specifications and the setup through the tools of the athenode MCP server, and ask you to run npx @athenode/cli init when those tools are missing from the session.
Settings	Load the workflow settings before working and follow each settings file's ## Custom section.
Questions	Ask you questions in one form: numbered, at most 4 per message, with the recommended option first.
ToDo cards	Attach an open question to a ToDo card only for a decision that you alone can make, and at most 3 per card.
Language	Write stored text such as specifications and settings in English and talk to you in your language.

init writes the rules into the file each selected AI tool reads, such as AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md. Rules in a setup covers editing them and where they are installed.

The MCP server in the standard setup

The standard setup has one MCP server, named athenode. It is the Athenode MCP server, through which your AI agent reads and writes specifications, ToDo cards and setups. init configures it for every AI tool you select. The Athenode MCP server lists its tools.

Settings files in the standard setup

The settings files are the setup files under settings/. They hold the project's workflow settings, and the skills read them each time they run.

File	Holds
settings/SETTINGS.md	The overview of the workflow settings, including the sub-projects of the repository that have settings of their own.
settings/gitflow.md	How agents use git: branches, commits, tags and what happens at the end of an apply run.
settings/testing.md	How thoroughly agents test their changes, whether they write end-to-end tests and how many attempts they make to fix failing tests.
settings/code-review.md	When implemented work is reviewed, which checks the review runs and how many automatic fix rounds it gets.
settings/methodology.md	Whether tests or the implementation are written first.

/atn-settings fills these files from your answers. Each file has a ## Custom section for your project's own rules, which /atn-settings leaves untouched and agents follow. When you keep separate settings for sub-projects, the setup holds one more folder of settings files per sub-project.

The settings files stay with the setup in Athenode and are not written into your repository. Setup files and settings covers reading and editing them.

How the parts of the standard setup depend on each other

The skills call each other and the agents by name. /atn-mindmap can go on to /atn-decompose and /atn-apply, and each skill hands work to the agents listed for it above. Renaming or removing a built-in skill or agent in your project's copy therefore stops the skills that use it.

Every skill of the standard setup works through the athenode MCP server, so a setup without that server cannot run them. The skills also rely on the settings files and on the MCP, Settings, Questions and Language sections of the rules.

/atn-manage names these consequences and asks you to confirm before it removes or replaces one of these parts.

How the standard setup fits the plan limits

The parts of your project's copy count towards the limits of the project's plan for one setup. With 7 skills, 10 agents and 1 MCP server in place, the Free plan's limits of 10 skills, 15 agents and 3 MCP servers per setup leave room for 3 more skills, 5 more agents and 2 more MCP servers. Plans and limits gives the limits of the Solo, Team and Business plans.

How updates to the standard setup reach your copy

When Athenode changes the standard setup, it updates your project's copy part by part.

Part of your copy	What an update does
A built-in skill or agent that your project has not changed	Receives the version from the standard setup.
A built-in skill or agent that your project changed	Keeps your version.
The rules, if your project has not changed them	Receive the version from the standard setup.
The rules, if your project changed them	Keep your version.
A skill or agent that the standard setup gains	Is added, unless your copy already has one of that name.
Settings files that exist	Stay as they are.
MCP servers	Stay as they are.
Skills, agents and files that you added	Stay as they are.

Updates apply to your project's copy of the standard setup. A clone of the copy and a setup added from the setup library are separate setups and are not updated this way.

An update changes the copy in your Athenode project. To bring it into a local project directory, run init there again:

npx @athenode/cli init

init shows the changed files in its plan before it writes them. Install a setup describes the plan.