Introduction#

What the manifest is, why it matters, and how the schema keeps things predictable.

What is `agent.json`?#

agent.json is the single source of truth for an AgentPM package or project. It describes:

Kind — a tool (single runnable package), a skill (procedural package), a knowledge package (prepared context or retrieval corpus), an agent (composes tools, skills, and knowledge), or a template (generates a project scaffold).
Behavior & interface — names, versions, entrypoint, inputs/outputs, files, env vars.
Operational details — runtime, timeouts, auth modes, and more.

AgentPM surfaces read this file to know how to validate, install, publish, or generate from the package.

Why it’s important#

Determinism: Installs and executions are reproducible across machines and CI.
Discoverability: The registry renders docs straight from the manifest.
Safety & trust: Lint/publish validations enforce schema correctness and semantic checks.

The schema (high level)#

The manifest is validated against a JSON Schema:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agentpm-dev/cli/refs/heads/main/schemas/agentpm.manifest.schema.json

At a glance:

File: agentpm.manifest.schema.json
Kinds: tool, skill, knowledge, agent, and template
Strictness: additionalProperties: false — unknown fields are rejected

Tip

Use agentpm init to scaffold a minimal, valid agent.json for any supported kind. We’ll dive into exact fields for tools, skills, knowledge packages, agents, and templates on the next pages.

Design notes#

Strict by default: Unknown fields are rejected (additionalProperties: false).
SemVer enforced: version must match a SemVer-compatible regex.
Paths: files[] are repo-relative paths or globs.

Versioning & stability#