holocron/docs/adr/0018-repo-consumes-its-own-plugins-through-apm.md

# This repo installs its own plugins through apm, not Claude Code's native plugin install

ADR-0015 moved plugin **authoring** to apm; ADR-0017 added the flat content mirror that keeps the
authored `.apm/` tree discoverable by hosts that install natively. Both are about producing the
marketplace. This ADR is about consuming it: how the plugins get onto the machine this repo is
worked on.

**Status: executed (2026-08-14).** All six packages are installed into `/root/ai-development` by
`apm install`; the six native project-scope installs (`claude plugin uninstall <name>@holocron
--scope project`) are gone and `.claude/settings.json`'s `enabledPlugins` block is empty.

## Context

Until now the repo consumed its own output the same way any user would: `claude plugin install
<name>@holocron`, six plugins enabled per-project in `.claude/settings.json`, the `holocron`
marketplace registered in `~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json` with `autoUpdate: true`.
That worked. It also meant the repo's dogfooding stopped one layer short of the tooling it
publishes: `kyberforge` ships `apm-workflow` and `apm-install` skills describing an install path
the repo itself did not take.

apm supports both scopes. `apm install --global` deploys to `~/.claude/`; plain `apm install`
deploys to the project. Global was rejected deliberately — the switch should be provable in one
repo before it changes how every other project on the machine resolves its skills.

## Decision

Root `apm.yml` declares all six packages under `dependencies.apm`, each as a `git:`/`path:` object
against the holocron remote:

```yaml
dependencies:
  apm:
    - git: git@git.dev.rkdr.net:Defame1297/holocron.git
      path: plugins/core
```

`apm install` deploys them to `.claude/skills/<name>/` and `.claude/agents/<name>.md`.

Three sub-decisions inside that:

- **Object form over the `<name>@holocron` marketplace alias.** The alias is shorter and apm
  resolves it correctly (verified end-to-end against this remote), but it first requires
  `apm marketplace add`, which writes to `~/.apm/marketplaces.json` — user scope, outside the
  repo, and absent on a fresh clone. The object form needs nothing beyond the committed manifest.
- **Remote source over local path.** apm accepts `path: /root/ai-development/plugins/<name>` as a
  local dependency, which would make the working tree live instantly. Rejected: it erases the
  distinction between editing a skill and shipping one, which is the entire point of having a
  marketplace. The remote form keeps the repo running the same released content every other
  consumer gets.
- **Unpinned against the default branch.** Parity with the `autoUpdate: true` the native install
  had. apm warns on every install (`6 dependencies unpinned`); accepted knowingly. Pinning is a
  per-entry `ref:` away once the repo tags releases per package — today `git tag` lists one tag
  total, so there is nothing meaningful to pin to.

## Consequences

**Skills gain an unnamespaced name.** apm deploys plain project skills, so `git:git-commits` also
answers to `git-commits` and `kyberforge:skill-audit` to `skill-audit`. This is not configurable —
a project skill has no plugin to prefix. `AGENTS.md` and `CONTEXT.md` are updated to name the bare
form, which is what apm deploys and the only form a repo consuming holocron through apm gets.

**Correction (2026-08-14): the namespaced form did not stop resolving.** *Superseded by the
2026-08-17 correction below: the machine state this cites is no longer present. Both are kept
because the pair is the finding — read neither as current.* An earlier revision of
this consequence said every `<plugin>:<skill>` reference "was stale the moment the switch landed",
and `AGENTS.md`/`CONTEXT.md` were written to match. That contradicts the "User scope is untouched,
deliberately" consequence below, and the contradiction resolves against it: `~/.claude.json` still
enables `core`, `git`, `gitea`, `kyberforge` and `lint` at user scope, so both names are live at
once and a working `gitea:gitea-prs` is the user-scope copy answering. That doubling is the same
"present twice under two names" outcome the "Keeping both install paths" alternative was rejected
for — reached by leaving user scope alone rather than by adopting it, which is why it is a
consequence to record rather than a decision to revisit. Prefer the bare name regardless: it
survives those user-scope installs eventually being converted, and the namespaced form still
resolves for anyone installing holocron natively, so skill bodies written for both audiences
should name the bare skill.

**Correction (2026-08-17): the evidence under the correction above is gone, and the claim goes with
it — not to its opposite.** Observed on this machine: `~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json` is
`{"version": 2, "plugins": {}}`; there is no `enabledPlugins` key anywhere in `~/.claude.json`
(`grep -c enabledPlugins` returns 0); `~/.apm/marketplaces.json` is `{"marketplaces": []}`. The
`holocron` entry in `~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json` survives, but a registered
marketplace is not an installed plugin. So the user-scope installs the 2026-08-14 correction cited
are not there, and neither is the state the *original* consequence described before it. The claim
about the namespaced form has now been written twice off two different observations of the same
machine, and this ADR has already reversed itself once on it. That is the finding: the fact is
machine state, not a property of this decision, and it changes without any commit. No instruction
file — `AGENTS.md`, `CONTEXT.md`, or a skill body — should assert either way whether
`<plugin>:<skill>` resolves. The rule that survives every observation is the one that was always the
actionable half: write the bare name, because it is the only form `apm install` produces.

**apm owns `.claude/settings.json`.** (ADR-0019 supersedes the "exactly `{"hooks": {}}`" claim
below — once a package ships a hook, apm merges it into that file and the merged entry is apm's own
output. The rule that nothing repo-authored goes in the file is unchanged.) `apm audit --ci` replays the install into a scratch tree and
diffs it against the worktree. apm's hook integrator writes that file, so the replay expects
exactly what apm would have written — `{"hooks": {}}` — and any repo-owned key in it is permanent
drift that fails the `apm-audit-ci` pre-push hook. Verified both directions: with the pre-existing
`enabledPlugins` block present, `1 of 10 check(s) failed`; reduced to `{"hooks": {}}`,
`All 10 check(s) passed`. Nothing was lost in that reduction — `enabledPlugins` was empty after the
native uninstall and the only `hooks` entry was an empty `PreToolUse: []` — but it does mean the
file is no longer available for repo-owned settings. Machine-specific settings go in the gitignored
`.claude/settings.local.json`, which apm does not deploy; shared enforcement belongs in
`.pre-commit-config.yaml`, where this repo already keeps it.

**`apm_modules/` breaks naive tree walks.** apm materializes a full copy of every dependency there
— including this repo's own plugins, `.bats` files and all. The dependency copies resolve their
bats helpers relative to their own root, not this repo's, so `tests/run-tests.sh` went from 167
tests passing to `334 tests, 167 failures` on the first install. Both discovery walks
(`tests/run-bats.sh`, `tests/run-tests.sh`) now exclude `apm_modules/`, on the find side and on the
`git ls-files` side that derives the expected set. Any future script that walks the repo tree needs
the same exclusion.

**Install output is gitignored; the lockfile is not.** `.claude/skills/`, `.claude/agents/`, and
`apm_modules/` are regenerated by `apm install`. Committing the deployed skills would add a third
mirror of content ADR-0017 already governs two copies of. `apm.lock.yaml` is committed — it is what
makes the install reproducible, and `apm audit --ci` checks it.

**MCP survived the switch; hooks were never at risk.** apm read `plugins/bin/.mcp.json` as a
self-defined direct-dependency MCP server and configured `obsidian` into the repo's `.mcp.json`
unprompted. The `gitea` and `context7` servers were never plugin-provided — they live in
`~/.claude.json` and are untouched. Every plugin's `.apm/hooks/hooks.json` is `{"hooks": {}}`, so
apm's "contributed no entries to claude settings; skipped" warning on `kyberforge` and `lint` is
accurate and harmless.

**A `.apm/` edit now needs a round trip.** The dependency resolves from the remote, so an edit is
invisible to the running session until it is pushed and the install is refreshed. Under the native
install with `autoUpdate` the shape was the same; it was more noticeable here at first because the
refresh is a manual step where marketplace auto-update was not — ADR-0019 automates it at
`SessionStart`.

**Correction (2026-08-14): the refresh command is `apm update`, not `apm install`.** An earlier
revision of this paragraph named `apm install`, which is wrong: `apm install` deploys from the
pinned `resolved_commit` in `apm.lock.yaml` and does not re-resolve refs (`apm install --force`
documents this explicitly — "does NOT refresh refs; use 'apm update' for that"). Running it after a
merge redeploys the same content and reports success.

**User scope is untouched, deliberately.** This decision changed project scope only; whatever is
natively installed at user scope was left alone, and converting it is a separate decision with a
blast radius beyond this repo. The specific inventory this paragraph used to name
(`bin@holocron`, `gitea@holocron`, a stale `hello-world@holocron`) is machine state and is stale —
see the 2026-08-17 correction above. The decision recorded here is unaffected by what that state is.

## Alternatives considered

- **`apm install --global`.** Verified working in an isolated `HOME`: user-scope deploys land in
  `~/.claude/skills/` and `~/.claude/agents/`, and it is the only scope where a plugin's `bin/`
  executables deploy (moot here — every `bin/` in this repo is empty but for a README). Deferred,
  not rejected: it changes skill resolution for every project on the machine at once.
- **Keeping both install paths.** Rejected: the same skill would be present twice under two names,
  and `.claude/settings.json` cannot hold `enabledPlugins` without failing `apm audit --ci`.