Install agent skills

Pidgen's agent skills teach your coding agent to use the pidgen CLI to file, plan, follow, and recover work. Install them after installing the CLI and signing in. Installing skills copies local files; it does not require a worker or send work to Pidgen.

1. Choose your coding agent

Use the command for your agent:

Coding agent	Install for your user
Claude Code	pidgen skills install --agent claude
Codex	pidgen skills install --agent codex
pi	pidgen skills install --agent pi

User scope is the default: your installed skills are available across repositories. The command copies the complete bundled set and reports, for each destination, the agents it serves and each skill's outcome, such as installed or unchanged. With --format json, data lists each skill's destination (dir) and action.

If you use several agents, pidgen skills install installs for all agents whose marker directories exist in your home directory. If none is detected, choose --agent explicitly from the table. Explicit selection also works before the agent has created its marker directory.

2. Verify the installation

Use the same agent selection you installed with. For Codex:

pidgen skills status --agent codex

Check that every skill is current (data.skills[].state with --format json). This verifies the files against the skills bundled with your running CLI. The command also compares the CLI's API contract with the server's (data.contract); unchecked means that check could not complete, while different means the server's contract differs. Neither means the local skill copies are missing.

Start a new agent session in your repository so the agent can discover the installed skills. If it does not see them, check its skill list and the destination reported by the install command. See Skill troubleshooting.

3. Try a skill

In your coding agent, ask:

Use pidgen-query-tickets to list my Pidgen projects and show any work that needs my attention.

This gives you a first read-only task. Your agent needs access to the pidgen command and your signed-in profile in its environment. Run pidgen auth status in that environment if it cannot authenticate.

When you are ready to file work, give the agent an outcome and a project:

Use pidgen-file-ticket to draft a ticket for project EXAMPLE to improve the sign-in error messages. Show me the title, objective, and acceptance criteria before submitting it.

Replace the project and task with your own. This is an instruction to your coding agent to let you review its draft; ticket create and intent submit themselves create or submit work immediately. Commands that support preview/apply must follow that flow. See the skill catalog for planning, recovery, and worker setup skills.

Install for one repository

Run from the repository root and select project scope:

pidgen skills install --agent codex --scope project
pidgen skills status --agent codex --scope project

Replace codex with claude or pi as needed. Project scope writes beneath the current directory; it does not search for the repository root. Use it when skills should travel with the repository, and review the copied files before committing them.

Agent	User-scope directory	Project-scope directory
Claude Code	~/.claude/skills	.claude/skills
Codex	~/.agents/skills	.agents/skills
pi	~/.agents/skills	.agents/skills

Codex and pi share a destination, so the CLI copies their skills only once when both are selected.

Keep your skills current

After updating the CLI, run the install command again for each agent and scope you use:

npm install -g pidgen@alpha --ignore-scripts
pidgen skills install --agent codex
pidgen skills status --agent codex

The installer updates stale copies and keeps current ones. It skips copies you edited, reporting skipped_edited; status reports them as edited. Review and back up those edits before choosing --force, which overwrites them with the bundled version.

Next: Install and connect a worker to execute work on your machine, or return to Create your first ticket.