Agentic Engineering 101 (Starter Repo)

This repository is a minimal starter kit for configuring coding agents (Codex + Claude Code) for the workflow we demo. It contains:

• A shared system prompt (SYSTEM.md)
• A small set of reusable skills (skills/)
• A sync script to install/link these into your local agent config (scripts/sync-agent-config.sh)
• A minimal Codex MCP configuration snippet (codex/config.toml)

The presentation we gave in the talk can be found here.

Repository Layout

• SYSTEM.md

  • The primary system prompt / working agreements for agents.
  • The sync script installs it by symlinking it into agent-specific locations.

• skills/

  • Skill packs (each subdirectory is one skill).
  • Current skills:
    • skills/maniple/SKILL.md: orchestrating parallel workers via the maniple MCP tools
    • skills/pebbles/SKILL.md: issue tracking workflow with Pebbles (pb)

• scripts/sync-agent-config.sh

  • Installs this repo's prompt and skills into your local agent config dirs.
  • Safe by default: it creates timestamped backups when it needs to replace files.

• codex/config.toml

  • A minimal example snippet for configuring Codex to use the maniple MCP server.
  • The sync script can optionally install/update this into ~/.codex/config.toml.

Sync Script

What It Does

By default, scripts/sync-agent-config.sh:

• Symlinks SYSTEM.md to:
  • ~/.codex/AGENTS.md
  • ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
• Copies skills/ into:
  • ~/.codex/skills/
  • ~/.claude/skills/

Optionally (with --codex-config), it ensures ~/.codex/config.toml includes the snippet in codex/config.toml using a managed block:

• If ~/.codex/config.toml does not exist, it creates it.
• If it already contains the managed block, it updates that block in-place.
• If it already contains [mcp_servers.maniple] (outside the managed block), it leaves the file alone.

Safety / Backups

• When replacing a file (symlink targets, or ~/.codex/config.toml during updates), it moves the existing file aside to a timestamped backup like:
  • ~/.codex/AGENTS.md.bak.20260210-123456
• Skills are copied into destination directories without deleting anything there.

Usage

# Show actions without modifying anything
scripts/sync-agent-config.sh --dry-run

# Sync prompt + skills
scripts/sync-agent-config.sh

# Sync prompt + skills, and also install/update Codex MCP snippet
scripts/sync-agent-config.sh --codex-config

Contents (High Level)

• SYSTEM.md:

  • General programming rules (small, additive changes; avoid unrequested refactors)
  • Sysadmin rules (make changes reversible; show terminal commands/results)
  • Development workflow guidance (coordinator vs implementer; investigation -> plan -> implement)
  • Git best practices (avoid working on main directly; use worktrees where appropriate)

• skills/maniple/SKILL.md:

  • How to spawn/monitor/close worker sessions
  • Worktree lifecycle expectations (review and cherry-pick worker commits)

• skills/pebbles/SKILL.md:

  • pb workflow quick reference (pb ready, pb create, pb dep add, pb sync, etc.)
  • Guidance for epics, subtasks, and dependency direction