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Defame1297 7910b8b12c docs(kyberforge): fix path drift and content gaps from apm conversion

The apm conversion (5e23250) moved skills/agents to plugins/<name>/.apm/
and deleted plugin-author/marketplace-author, but a review against issue
#90's Definition of Done found several stale pre-conversion references
left behind by straight git-mv's, plus one real content gap:

- ADR-0014 still documented the old flat vale-prefilter paths in 6
  places, despite ADR-0015 claiming it had been updated.
- ADR-0015 also overclaimed: it said ADR-0014 had both a skills/ and an
  agents/ path regex updated, but ADR-0014 never had an agents/ path
  regex to begin with (its one "agents" mention is a Vale glob-section
  identifier, not a filesystem path). Corrected the wording.
- CONTEXT.md's Skill glossary entry, its Vale-prefilter section, and its
  plugin-author/marketplace-author forward-pointer all still described
  the pre-conversion layout or a "pending issue #90" state that has since
  landed.
- LESSONS.md and two skill test READMEs pointed at skill-author/
  skill-audit/agent-author paths without the .apm/ segment.
- apm-workflow/references/marketplace.md cited plugin-author/SKILL.md's
  Gotchas for the Claude Code reserved plugin-name-prefix list, but that
  list was never actually carried into apm-workflow during the
  conversion despite ADR-0015 claiming it was. Recovered the list from
  git history and inlined it directly rather than leaving a dangling
  citation.
- agent-author/references/deployment-modes.md had an example
  contradicting its own stated .apm/agents/ convention two lines above.

Refs: #90

2026-08-13 07:50:56 +00:00

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source_keys

context7-websites-code-claude

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claude-code-subagents-docs

context7-github-en-copilot

github-custom-agents-configuration

github-cli-plugin-reference

Agent Deployment Modes

Agent definitions deploy at three scopes and behave differently at each. The scope determines which fields are honoured, where files must live, and what identifiers users invoke.

Scope hierarchy and precedence

Scope	Claude Code path	Copilot CLI path	Who it affects
User	`~/.claude/agents/`	`~/.copilot/agents/`	All sessions for this user
Project	`.claude/agents/`	`.github/agents/` or `.copilot/agents/`	This repo only
Plugin/APM	`<package-root>/.apm/agents/<name>.agent.md` — single vendor-neutral file, `apm compile` emits it to both targets	(same file)	Sessions with the plugin/package installed

When the same agent name appears at multiple scopes, user scope wins over project scope wins over plugin scope in Claude Code. In Copilot CLI, repo-level agents override enterprise and org-level; home-directory (user) agents override repo-level on name collision.

Plugin scope restrictions

Plugin/APM agents (.apm/agents/<name>.agent.md) carry only name, description, optionally model, and optionally source_keys (provenance metadata, not a runtime field — silently ignored by both harnesses) in frontmatter — full stop (see ADR-0016). apm compile copies this frontmatter verbatim to both the Claude Code and Copilot CLI compile targets with no per-target integrator: Claude's tools: (space-separated string) and Copilot's tools: (alias list) are incompatible vocabularies, and Claude-only fields have no Copilot equivalent, so any harness-specific value is guaranteed wrong on at least one target.

This makes the old "silently ignored at plugin scope" framing moot. It's not that hooks, mcpServers, permissionMode, tools, isolation, maxTurns, effort, memory, disallowedTools, skills, color, initialPrompt, or background are merely ignored at this scope — they are never written to the file at all. Copy the agent to .claude/agents/ (project scope) or ~/.claude/agents/ (user scope) to use any of them.

Scoped identifiers (Claude Code plugin agents only)

Plugin agents in subdirectories get compound identifiers:

plugins/my-plugin/.apm/agents/review/security.agent.md  →  my-plugin:review:security

Users must invoke with @agent-my-plugin:review:security. Keep agents flat in agents/ to avoid this — subdirectory nesting is rarely worth the UX cost.

At project and user scope, subdirectory path does not affect the agent's name.

Cache isolation

When a plugin is installed, its directory is copied to a cache. Any path that leaves the agent's plugin directory breaks post-install. Agent definition files must be self-contained — they cannot reference scripts, templates, or shared files outside the plugin.

Agents at project or user scope are read directly from disk; cache isolation does not apply.

Copilot CLI path conventions

Scope	Expected path	Notes
User	`~/.copilot/agents/<name>.agent.md`	Home directory
Project	`.github/agents/<name>.agent.md`	Standard; also `.copilot/agents/`
Plugin/APM	`<package-root>/.apm/agents/<name>.agent.md`	Not a Copilot-only file — this is the single vendor-neutral source `apm compile` reads for the Copilot CLI target

The .agent.md extension is mandatory for real Copilot CLI files (project/user scope) — Copilot CLI does not pick up plain .md files in the agents/ directory. The plugin/APM source file also uses .agent.md by convention, since it compiles to Copilot CLI too, but it is not itself a Copilot file.

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