Athenode

Plugins

A plugin is a named bundle of what your AI coding tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and plugin files. A plugin is kept in your Athenode project, and the Athenode CLI installs it into a local project directory in the format each AI tool reads.

What a plugin contains

Besides its name and an optional description, a plugin holds these parts.

Part What it is How to work with it
Skills 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. Skills in a plugin
Agents An agent is a specialist that an AI tool can hand work to (a subagent in most AI tools). Agents in a plugin
Rules Rules are the instructions every agent in a plugin follows. A plugin has one rules text, which an AI tool reads from a file such as AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md. Rules in a plugin
MCP servers An MCP server is a connection to an external tool server that the agents of the plugin can use. MCP servers in a plugin
Plugin files Plugin files are extra Markdown files kept with the plugin, such as references your skills and agents read. The files under settings/ are the settings files, which hold the project's workflow settings. Plugin files and settings

You see a project's plugins on the Plugins page of the web UI. Owners and editors create and change plugins, and viewers read them. Roles and permissions has the full list of who can do what.

One plugin for every member and every AI tool

A plugin belongs to the project, so every member of the project sees the same one. Each member installs it into their own local project directory with athenode init and selects the AI tools they use there. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the rest of the 30 supported AI tools each receive the plugin's skills, agents, rules and MCP servers, as a plugin package or as files in the tool's own folders. A plugin package is the package that seven AI tools load a plugin from: it holds the plugin's skills, agents and MCP servers under the plugin's slug, and its commands are written /<slug>:<skill>.

Two members who use different AI tools therefore run the same skill, hand work to the same agents and follow the same rules. What they type to run a skill differs by AI tool, and the supported AI tools page gives the form for each tool. Where an AI tool cannot take one part of a plugin, the plan that init shows names that part under "Not installed" before anything is written.

When an owner or editor changes a plugin, the change is in the project at once and appears in the web UI for every member without reloading. Each member brings it into their directory by running init again, which updates only what changed.

A project has more than one member on a self-hosted Athenode Pro server, where members join with a role.

The standard Athenode plugin and your project's copy

The standard Athenode plugin carries Athenode's own workflow for spec-driven development (SDD). Its skills include /atn:mindmap, which runs a mind map, a session in which your AI agent asks rounds of questions and turns your answers into a specification. /atn:decompose breaks a specification down into one level of stages, and /atn:apply has your AI agent plan and implement each leaf specification under the one you name. The plugin also holds the agents those skills hand work to, the rules, the Athenode MCP server and the settings files. The standard Athenode plugin lists every part.

Every new project starts with its own copy of the standard plugin, named "Athenode". Lists in the web UI mark it Copy of the standard plugin. The copy belongs to your project alone. You can edit everything in it, rename it and clone it, and it is the one plugin of a project that cannot be deleted.

Athenode keeps the parts of your copy that you have not changed up to date with the standard plugin. A skill, an agent or the rules that you edited stays as you left it.

The installed plugin

The installed plugin is the plugin whose files are in a given local project directory. In a project with one plugin, init installs that plugin, which is your project's copy of the standard plugin. In a project with several, init asks which one to install. It records the choice in .athenode/config.json in that directory.

A directory holds one installed plugin at a time, and each directory has its own. Two working copies of the same repository can have different plugins installed, and two members can have different AI tools selected for the same plugin.

Changes you make to a plugin in the web UI reach a directory the next time init runs there. Changes made from your AI tool with /atn:manage update the files of the installed plugin in the same step. Install a plugin covers init in full: its questions, the plan it shows and what it leaves alone in your repository.

The slug of a plugin

The slug of a plugin is its short name, written in lowercase letters and digits joined by single hyphens, with up to 64 characters. The slug is the name of the plugin package that init installs the plugin as and the prefix of its commands, and init --plugin accepts it in place of the plugin's id.

Your project's copy of the standard plugin has the slug atn, so its skills are run as /atn:mindmap and /atn:apply. That slug is fixed, and no other plugin can take it. A plugin with the slug security-review and a skill named scan gives /security-review:scan. A skill whose name starts with the slug and a hyphen drops that start, which is how the skill atn-mindmap becomes /atn:mindmap.

A slug is unique among the plugins of a project. When you create a plugin, Athenode suggests a slug made from the name and adds -2 or a higher number when another plugin of the project has that slug. A plugin added from the plugin library takes the slug of its entry, adjusted in the same way.

Where How to change the slug
Web UI Open the plugin in the inspector, enter the slug in Slug and save it. The dialog Change the slug? names the old and the new slug, and Change slug confirms.
Your AI tool An agent changes it with the tool plugins_update of the Athenode MCP server.

Changing a slug renames the plugin package and its commands, so /security-review:scan becomes /release-review:scan after the slug changes to release-review. The change is in your Athenode project at once. It reaches a local project directory at the next init there, which prints "The plugin's slug changed from" with both slugs and replaces the plugin package under the old name.

Athenode refuses a slug that an AI tool keeps for itself: self, process, skill, subagent, vibe, file-system, claude, anthropic and anthropics, any slug that starts with claude-, anthropic-, anthropics- or cc-plugin-, and any slug that contains official together with claude or anthropic. It also refuses a slug in the form of a plugin id.

Plugins for work outside the specification workflow

Athenode's workflow is one plugin among others. A plugin can hold any skills, agents, rules and MCP servers, so you can build one for a different job and install it in the directory where that job is done.

Take a web shop whose specification "Checkout flow" has the stages "Cart", "Payment" and "Shipping". The team builds those stages with the project's copy of the standard plugin. Before the release they want a security review of the payment code, so they create a second plugin named "Security review". It holds a skill that walks through the payment code against the team's checklist, a reviewer agent, rules on how findings are reported and an MCP server for their dependency scanner. A reviewer installs it in a second working copy of the repository with athenode init --plugin <id-or-slug> and runs the review there, while the first working copy keeps the workflow skills.

Installing a different plugin in a directory removes the files of the plugin that was installed there before. A directory that should have both the workflow skills and skills of your own needs one plugin that contains both, which you get by adding your skills to your project's copy of the standard plugin or by pulling them into it.

You want What to do
The whole project to work differently Edit your project's copy of the standard plugin.
A variant to try while the original stays as it is Clone the plugin and edit the clone.
A plugin for a different job, such as a security review Create a plugin and add its parts, add one from the plugin library, or import an external plugin that already holds the skills and agents for the job. An external plugin is a plugin package from outside Athenode, such as an Agent Plugins or Claude Code plugin.
A few skills or agents that another plugin already has Pull them from that plugin.
A directory to do a different job Install a different plugin there.

The plugin library is the shared catalogue of plugins that projects have published. Anyone signed in to Athenode can browse it, and an owner or editor can add an entry to a project as a new plugin or merge it into a plugin the project has.

A project holds as many plugins as you need, with no plan limit on the number of plugins, skills, agents or MCP servers.

How a plugin changes over time

  • You edit it, in the web UI, or from your AI tool with /atn:manage.
  • Athenode updates the unchanged parts of your project's copy when the standard plugin changes.
  • A plugin that you added as a whole from the plugin library shows Update available when its entry gets a newer version, and you choose which of its changes to apply.
  • You pull content from another plugin, which is a one-time copy that later changes to the source do not follow.

An update from Athenode, an update from the library and a pull in the web UI change the plugin in your Athenode project and leave local directories as they are. Run init again to bring them into a directory, and follow the steps it prints under "Still to do in your tools:".

A plugin can also be published to the plugin library, where each publish creates a new version of its entry. Publish a plugin describes what becomes visible and to whom.

Pages about plugins