supagents 1.1.0

Compile a single AI supagent into multiple AI subagents.

supagents

Compile a single AI supagent into multiple AI subagents.

Supagents is a small Python CLI that compiles a single markdown file into target-specific subagent files for Claude Code, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, OpenCode, and Kilo Code. You write the agent's persona once and ship it to every agent CLI you use.

Why

Every agent CLI has its own subagent format. The persona is the same ("You are a code-investigation expert..."), but each one wants a different YAML frontmatter shape and a different output directory. Hand-syncing every file every time you tweak a prompt is miserable.

Supagents takes the opposite approach from format-conversion tools: it makes you write each target's frontmatter verbatim in named blocks, and then it does the boring parts — splitting the body, copying shared keys, writing files atomically, and cleaning up stale outputs.

   one source                                 many outputs
   ─────────                                  ────────────
                                              ~/.claude/agents/code_investigator.md
                                              ~/.gemini/agents/code_investigator.md
~/.agents/supagents/code_investigator.md  →   ~/.copilot/agents/code_investigator.agent.md
                                              ~/.cursor/agents/code_investigator.md
                                              ~/.config/opencode/agents/code_investigator.md
                                              ~/.config/kilo/agents/code_investigator.md

The diagram shows the full fan-out. Declare any subset of target blocks in your source and supagents emits just those — the example below picks three.

Install

uv tool install supagents
# or:
pipx install supagents
# or, from this repo:
uv tool install --from /path/to/supagents supagents

Requires Python 3.12+.

Install as a plugin or extension

The same repo doubles as a Claude Code plugin, a Gemini CLI extension, and a GitHub Copilot plugin — install it through your agent CLI and it pulls in the bundled use-agent-supagents Agent Skill. Your agent learns the source format and CLI semantics up front, so you don't have to paste docs into prompts.

Tool	Manifest in the repo	What it installs
Claude Code	.claude-plugin/plugin.json (+ marketplace.json)	Plugin + bundled marketplace.
Gemini CLI	gemini-extension.json	Gemini CLI extension.
GitHub Copilot	plugin.json	Copilot plugin manifest.

These manifests register the Skill — they don't install the supagents CLI binary. Install the CLI separately (above) so supagents build lives on $PATH.

Quick start

Scaffold a new source with supagents init <name> (writes a template with all default target blocks), or drop one yourself at ~/.agents/supagents/code_investigator.md. The example below declares three blocks to keep things short — add CURSOR:, OPENCODE:, or KILO: blocks to emit those targets too:

---
name: code_investigator
description: Use to explore unfamiliar codebases — trace symbols, map data flow across modules, and explain how a feature is implemented.

CLAUDE:
  model: sonnet
  tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash

GEMINI:
  kind: local
  tools: ["*"]
  mcp_servers:
    context7:
      command: npx
      args: ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp@latest"]

COPILOT:
  target: vscode
  model: ["gpt-5", "gpt-4.1"]
  APPEND_BODY: |

    ## Copilot-specific
    Reference tools inline with `#tool:<name>`.
---

# Code Investigator Agent

You are the specialized code investigation agent. Help the user explore unfamiliar codebases: trace symbols, map data flow across modules, and explain how features are implemented.

Then build:

supagents build

You'll get one file per declared target — three in this example:

~/.claude/agents/code_investigator.md           # Claude Code subagent
~/.gemini/agents/code_investigator.md           # Gemini CLI agent
~/.copilot/agents/code_investigator.agent.md    # GitHub Copilot agent

Each output gets the shared keys (name, description) plus the target's own keys, the shared body, and a generation marker comment so supagents clean can safely identify what it owns.

Source filenames must match ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9_-]*\.md$ — lowercase letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores only.

How it works

The frontmatter is partitioned by case:

Case	Where it goes
lowercase keys at the top	shared frontmatter — copied to every output
UPPERCASE keys at the top	target sections (CLAUDE, GEMINI, COPILOT)
lowercase keys inside a target	that target's frontmatter (overrides shared)
UPPERCASE keys inside a target	directives — not emitted

Two directives are recognized:

Directive	What it does
OUTPUT	Override the output path for this target only
APPEND_BODY	Append target-specific markdown to the shared body

A target section's presence triggers an emit. Drop the COPILOT: block and you stop generating Copilot files. There is no field-level conversion — what you write is what gets written.

For validation rules, scope resolution, and idempotency guarantees, see the inline docstrings in src/supagents/ — core.py and config.py.

CLI

supagents --version
supagents build [SCOPE] [--dry-run | --check] [--target T]... [--config PATH] [-v]
supagents clean [SCOPE] [--dry-run]           [--target T]... [--config PATH]
supagents list  [SCOPE]                       [--target T]... [--config PATH]
supagents init  NAME [SCOPE] [--force]

SCOPE is --global/-g or --project/-p; if omitted, supagents auto-detects.

Command	Purpose
build	Compile sources to outputs. Idempotent — unchanged files aren't rewritten (mtimes preserved). Warnings and errors print to stderr. --check exits 1 if anything would change — handy as a CI guard against stale outputs. See Exit codes.
clean	Delete marker-bearing outputs whose source is gone. Hand-written files in the same directory are preserved.
list	Print a table of every source and the per-target outputs it would produce.
init	Scaffold a new source file at <scope>/.../NAME.md with the default target blocks pre-filled. Refuses to overwrite without --force.

Flags

Flag	Applies to	Notes
--target T, -t	build, clean, list	Operate only on the named target(s); repeatable, case-insensitive. Unknown targets are rejected.
--check	build	Don't write; exit 1 if any output would change. Mutually exclusive with --dry-run. Useful as a CI guard against stale generated files.
--verbose, -v	build	Also print files that were left unchanged — useful when sanity-checking idempotency.
--config PATH, -c	all	Override the default config path ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/supagents/config.yaml).
--force, -f	init	Overwrite the file if it already exists.
--version	top-level	Print the installed version and exit.

Exit codes

Every command resolves to one of three exit codes — pick them up in CI to fail fast on the right thing:

Code	Meaning
0	Success. Nothing wrong, nothing stale.
1	Per-target errors, or --check detected drift you'd need to commit.
2	Fatal parse error, or a write failed mid-build.

Scopes

Scope	Source location
Global	~/.agents/supagents/*.md
Project	./.agents/supagents/*.md

If neither --global nor --project is passed, supagents auto-detects: project scope when .agents/supagents/ exists in the current directory, global otherwise.

Bundled targets

A target only emits when its block appears in the source frontmatter. The bundled defaults:

Target	Global output	Project output	Suffix
CLAUDE	~/.claude/agents/	.claude/agents/	.md
GEMINI	~/.gemini/agents/	.gemini/agents/	.md
COPILOT	~/.copilot/agents/	.github/agents/	.agent.md
CURSOR	~/.cursor/agents/	.cursor/agents/	.md
OPENCODE	~/.config/opencode/agents/	.opencode/agents/	.md
KILO	~/.config/kilo/agents/	.kilo/agents/	.md

Override any path or add a new target via the config file (see below).

Pre-commit integration

Drop this in your repo's .pre-commit-config.yaml:

- repo: https://github.com/fmind/agent-supagents
  rev: v1.0.0  # pin to a tagged release — see https://github.com/fmind/agent-supagents/releases
  hooks:
    - id: supagents-build

The hook runs whenever a source file under .agents/supagents/ (or chezmoi source state under dot_agents/supagents/) changes, and rewrites the generated outputs in place. Commit them alongside the sources so PRs stay self-consistent. To enforce that on the CI side, run supagents build --check — it exits non-zero if any generated file would change.

If you'd rather not depend on a remote hook repo, use the local form:

- repo: local
  hooks:
    - id: supagents-build
      name: supagents build
      entry: supagents build
      language: system
      files: ^(\.agents/supagents/|dot_agents/supagents/)[a-z0-9][a-z0-9_-]*\.md$
      pass_filenames: false

chezmoi integration

If you manage your dotfiles with chezmoi, put your sources in:

~/.local/share/chezmoi/dot_agents/supagents/<name>.md

chezmoi apply materializes them at ~/.agents/supagents/<name>.md. Supagents reads from the materialized path, so a typical flow is:

chezmoi edit ~/.agents/supagents/code_investigator.md
chezmoi apply
supagents build --global

The pre-commit hook above already watches the chezmoi source path (dot_agents/supagents/), so committing inside your dotfiles repo regenerates the outputs automatically.

Configuration

Six targets ship by default (CLAUDE, GEMINI, COPILOT, CURSOR, OPENCODE, KILO). To override their paths or add a new one, drop a YAML config at ~/.config/supagents/config.yaml (XDG-compliant — honours $XDG_CONFIG_HOME):

targets:
  claude:
    global_path: ~/.claude/agents
    project_path: .claude/agents

Per-field merge: any field you omit falls back to the bundled default. Lowercase keys in the file are normalised to UPPERCASE to match the source frontmatter convention. Once a target is registered, sources can use its UPPERCASE name in their frontmatter and supagents will emit for it.

Development

git clone https://github.com/fmind/agent-supagents.git
cd agent-supagents
just install   # uv sync + pre-commit install
just lint      # ruff format check + ruff check + ty + uv lock --check
just test      # pytest with coverage (≥ 90% gate)
just format    # auto-fix imports and formatting
just update    # bump locked deps + pre-commit autoupdate
just clean     # drop caches and __pycache__

just lint and just test are exactly what CI runs — green locally means green in CI.

The build is small on purpose: a tight dependency surface (typer, rich, ruamel.yaml, pydantic), no I/O outside documented paths, ty for type checks, ruff with a strict ruleset, pre-commit as the single source of truth wired into CI.

Design

A few principles worth calling out:

• Verbatim per-target frontmatter. Each target gets its own block in the source; supagents copies it through unchanged. No schema conversion, no surprises.
• Open-list targets. Adding a new target is a few lines in ~/.config/supagents/config.yaml. The source format already supports it.
• Idempotent builds. Two consecutive supagents build runs against an unchanged source tree perform zero writes. Generated files keep their mtimes.
• Safe cleanup. supagents clean only deletes files it can prove it generated, by checking for the marker comment at the top.

License

MIT — Médéric Hurier (Fmind).