| name | apm-dotfiles |
| description | Use when deciding where Stuart's reusable agent customization belongs: public dotfiles vs private overlay, dot-agent vs dot-skill, APM target compatibility, or plugin/config-fragment structure. Not for repo Rust details.
|
APM Dotfiles
Place the change
| Content | Owner |
|---|
| reusable interaction or coding workflow | dot-agent |
| skill/plugin authoring and maintenance | dot-skill |
| repository-specific guidance | that repository's .agents/skills/ |
| work, host, employer, or private guidance | private overlay plugin |
| model/reasoning/UI defaults | public conf/agent-settings.toml |
| skills, hooks, prompts, instructions, MCP | APM plugin or fragment |
Prefer one narrow skill per recurring behavior. Update an existing skill instead
of adding a near-duplicate.
Plugin rules
- Use native layout:
apm.yml, includes: auto, and .apm/<primitive>/.
- Keep local package names short and
dot-*.
- Reference local packages with forward slashes.
- Public files contain no secrets, private URLs, or employer-confidential data.
- Private overlays add fragments/plugins through overlay symlink config and
reference credentials through environment variables.
- Keep self-defined MCP servers direct unless transitive trust is intentional.
Target compatibility
- Top-level
targets selects default harnesses.
- A dependency-level
targets list narrows the entire package.
- Split packages when primitives need different target sets.
- Cowork remains an experimental, skills-only target. A Cowork-targeted
package's skills must work without its MCP servers, hooks, prompts, agents,
commands, or instructions.
- Dotfiles enables Cowork's APM feature and honors APM's configured path, then
follows lockfile target subsets during ACL-safe file reconciliation.
Dependency filters are authoritative.
Verify
For public APM config or plugin changes run ./dotfiles.sh install -n. Validate
private-overlay changes from a checkout where that overlay is configured. Use
the repository's ai-tooling-apm skill for Rust implementation details.
