Quick Start for Consumers

1. Install Intent and set up guidance#

Add @tanstack/intent as a development dependency and commit your lockfile before generating guidance:

Then run setup. The command tabs use the latest published CLI, not the version in your lockfile. Generated guidance uses the detected package manager's runner; check its command if you need the installed version. The dependency pins the CLI used by CI when configured to run the installed CLI.

Run this in an interactive terminal. On first use, Intent helps you choose which installed packages and skills your agent may use, then creates or updates skill-loading guidance.

1. Choose what to enable. Pick Enable all, Choose packages or scopes, or Choose individual skills. Package and skill lists support search.
2. Confirm and finish. Check the saved rules and destination package.json. Choose Continue with all selected skills to save, or Review individual skills to pick which selected packages to inspect before confirming. Intent writes permissions and guidance, verifies the guidance, and shows a command to list available skills.

Enable all saves "*". A package choice saves "@tanstack/ai"; a whole scope saves "@tanstack/*". These rules include future matching skills. Individual choices use "@tanstack/ai#skill". Unchecking a skill during review adds an exclusion while keeping its broad rule.

Skill instructions can change when dependencies update. Update notifications are not available yet. See About skill access and updates in the installer for details.

Selecting nothing requires explicit confirmation to disable all skills. If no skills are found, or all are excluded, Intent explains the next step and leaves permissions and guidance unchanged. Install a package that ships skills or review your exclusions, then run install again.

Canceling before confirmation writes neither file. --dry-run previews the flow without writing. First-run setup requires a terminal; noninteractive execution fails without writes when permissions have not been configured.

If an intent-skills block already exists, Intent updates that file in place. If no block exists, AGENTS.md is the default target.

The managed block instructs agents to run intent list from the workspace root, load the most specific matching skill with intent load, and apply its guidance before editing. Intent generates those commands using the detected package manager's runner. See Default output for the installed instructions and Mapping output for explicit task mappings.

To enforce loading guidance before edits in supported agents, opt in to hooks:

Project-scoped hooks are installed for Claude Code and Codex. intent install can write project guidance to .github/copilot-instructions.md, but GitHub Copilot CLI hook enforcement is user-scoped, so configure it explicitly:

Cursor and generic AGENTS.md agents use the guidance block only.

Hooks return the available Intent skill catalog as context for supported agent sessions and keep the edit gate active until they observe a supported intent load command.

Hooks do not verify that:

• The command succeeded.
• The skill matched the task.
• The agent applied the guidance.

To control what appears in the session catalog, configure intent.skills and intent.exclude in package.json.

2. Review the saved permissions#

install saves your choices in package.json#intent.skills, an allowlist of packages or individual skills. It uses the nearest package.json that owns the directory where you ran the command.

{
  "intent": {
    "skills": ["@your-scope/library#task-name"]
  }
}

The package and skill above are placeholders; use names from your installed skills.

When permissions already exist, including inherited workspace permissions, install preserves them and only updates guidance. To change your choices, edit the owning intent.skills declaration. You can also use * package patterns such as @tanstack/*. Existing intent.exclude rules still take precedence. See the source entries in Configuration and the Trust model.

3. Use skills in your workflow#

Run intent list and choose a skill that matches the task. Replace @your-scope/library#task-name below with an installed package and skill from that list:

This prints the skill content for the installed package version.

Intent cannot guarantee that an agent selected the correct skill or followed its guidance. See Lifecycle boundaries.

If you want explicit task-to-skill mappings in your agent config, opt in:

4. Keep skills up-to-date#

Update the library through your project's dependency-update workflow.

Skills version with library releases. Updating a library also updates its packaged skills, so the skill version matches the installed code. If a package is installed both locally and globally and global scanning is enabled, Intent prefers the local version.

List the installed skills:

Use --json for machine-readable output:

Global package scanning is opt-in:

You can also check if any skills reference outdated source documentation: