/atn:manage: manage plugins from your AI tool
/atn:manage lists, creates, changes and deletes plugins and everything inside them, and works with the plugin library, from a request you write in plain words. Run it when you want to change a plugin without leaving your AI tool, for example to add an MCP server or to edit a skill while you are using it.
A plugin is a named bundle of what your AI coding tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and plugin files. /atn:manage is one of the skills of the standard Athenode plugin. 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 plugin as "Security review"The skill works on the installed plugin, which is the plugin whose files are in your local project directory, unless the request names another plugin of the project. For a pull and for every request about the plugin library, it needs the plugin named and asks when the request leaves it open.
/atn:manage acts through the Athenode MCP server of your project, so on an Athenode Pro server it can do what your role in the project allows. Changing a plugin 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 plugin, 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 |
|---|---|
| Plugins | List the project's plugins, create an empty one, clone an existing one, rename one, change its description, delete one. Pull another plugin of the project into a plugin, in full or only the items you name. |
| Plugin files | Browse the files of a plugin, 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 plugin, create one, change its description, instructions or settings, rename it, remove it. |
| Agents | List the agents of a plugin, create one, change its description, instructions or settings, rename it, remove it. |
| MCP servers | List the MCP servers of a plugin, add one, change its fields, remove it. |
| Rules | Read the rules of a plugin and change them. |
| Plugin library | Browse and search the library, show an entry or one of its items, add an entry as a new plugin, merge an entry into a plugin, update a plugin that was added from the library, publish a plugin or a new version of it, change an entry's name, description, category or public display, unpublish an entry. |
Each area has a home page that describes the feature itself: create and organise plugins, pull from another plugin, plugin files, skills, agents, MCP servers, rules, the plugin library and publishing a plugin.
You install a plugin, or a different one, in the terminal with athenode init. You like a library entry and skip a version of one in the web UI. You pull from a plugin of another project in the web UI.
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 plugin, 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 plugins already added from it keep working and stop receiving updates. |
| Publishing a plugin or a new version | The entry's name, description, category, 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 plugin relies on.
| The request touches | The warning |
|---|---|
| Deleting the installed plugin | The local project directory loses its skills, agents, rules and MCP servers at the next install. The skill suggests installing another plugin first. |
The athenode MCP server |
Every skill of the standard plugin works through it, so they stop working in directories that have this plugin 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 plugin. |
| The MCP, Settings, Questions or Language section of the rules | Every skill and agent of the standard plugin 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 plugins in your Athenode project. Members see the change in the web UI at once.
For the installed plugin, 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 plugin, nothing changes locally. The change reaches a directory when that plugin is installed there, or at the next init in a directory that already has it.
The skill does not install a different plugin. After it creates or clones a plugin, or adds one from the library, it gives you the command to run, athenode init --plugin <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 plugin 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 plugin visible to every signed-in Athenode user and turns on its public display, so the Athenode website can show the entry to anyone. Publishing needs you to be signed in to your Athenode account. It also refuses a publication while an MCP server of the plugin holds a value typed in directly in its environment variables or headers.
/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 plugin'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 plugin, set the environment variables an MCP server refers to, or run
athenode init --plugin <id-or-slug>to install a plugin; - 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 plugins of the project or the skills of a plugin, come as a compact table.