the-agency

CLI for hiring prompt repositories and resolving prompts from the currently active agency.

What This Repo Is

the-agency is a small Node.js CLI that turns a prompt repository into a local, queryable tool. You point it at a git repo or a local directory, the CLI records that source in local state, and then you can:

• register one or more prompt repositories as agencies
• mark one agency as the active source
• browse folders and prompt files inside that source
• resolve a specific prompt by path-like selectors
• store local config values alongside agency metadata

The CLI always prints JSON so it can be used interactively or from automation.

Key Concepts

• agency: a registered prompt source, backed by either a git repository URL or a local directory
• current agency: the default agency used when you run prompt lookup commands
• selectors: positional arguments used to walk folders and prompts inside the active agency
• local store: a JSON file under .agency/ that tracks agencies, config values, and the current selection

Install

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 20+
• pnpm
• git available on your PATH for cloning and pull-based refreshes

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Build And Run

Build the CLI:

pnpm build

Run the installed CLI directly:

the-agency --help

Smoke test the local build:

pnpm local:test

The smoke test rebuilds the project, prints CLI help, and runs agencies list against an empty local store.

Core Commands

Show help:

the-agency --help

List registered agencies:

the-agency agencies list

Register a remote prompt repo and make it active:

the-agency hire git@github.com:your-org/agency-prompts.git

Register a local prompt directory and make it active:

the-agency hire ../agency-prompts

Switch the active agency:

the-agency agencies use your-org-agency-prompts

Browse the root of the active agency:

the-agency

Browse a folder inside the active agency:

the-agency engineering

Resolve a specific prompt from selectors:

the-agency engineering technical-writer

Limit output fields when browsing or resolving:

the-agency --fields name,description engineering technical-writer

List local config values:

the-agency config list

Set and read a local config value:

the-agency config set default_model gpt-5
the-agency config get default_model

Local Data And Config Behavior

By default, the CLI stores its state in a project-local folder:

./.agency/

That directory contains:

• store.json: agency registry, current agency, and config values
• repos/: cloned copies of remote prompt repositories

You can override the storage location with AGENCY_HOME:

AGENCY_HOME="$HOME/.agency-dev" the-agency agencies list

Behavior details:

• hiring a remote repo clones it into .agency/repos/<derived-key> if it is not already present
• hiring an already-known remote repo reuses the cached clone
• cached remote repos are refreshed with git pull --ff-only at most once every 24 hours
• if refresh fails, the CLI keeps using the existing local clone and returns a warning
• hiring a local directory uses that directory in place; no clone or pull is attempted
• when prompt lookup runs against an empty local store, the CLI automatically registers and activates https://github.com/nivoset/agency-agents.git as the default agency

Prompt Repository Expectations

This CLI expects a prompt repository organized as folders plus Markdown files.

Typical shape:

engineering/
  engineering-technical-writer.md
  engineering-code-reviewer.md
design/
  design-ui-designer.md

Prompt files are resolved by selector matching. The resolver supports browsing folders and resolving prompts by file-like names such as technical-writer.

The implementation also filters noise at the repo root, including hidden directories, .git, node_modules, and .gitignored files.

Common Workflows

Use a prompt repo from git:

the-agency hire git@github.com:your-org/agency-prompts.git
the-agency engineering
the-agency engineering technical-writer

Use a prompt repo from a local checkout while editing prompts:

the-agency hire ../agency-prompts
the-agency agencies list
the-agency product product-manager

Store local defaults for your wrapper scripts:

the-agency config set model gpt-5
the-agency config set temperature 0.2
the-agency config list

Development

Build:

pnpm build

Run the smoke test:

pnpm local:test

Run the test suite:

pnpm test

pnpm test exercises frontmatter parsing, local store behavior, prompt resolution, ambiguity handling, helper utilities, and root-level filtering rules.

Troubleshooting

pnpm install fails with packages field missing or empty:

• ensure pnpm-workspace.yaml includes a valid packages entry
• this repo expects the workspace file to include packages: ['.']

Lookup returns No agency is active yet:

• run the-agency hire <git-repo-or-local-dir> first
• or switch to an existing agency with the-agency agencies use <agency-key>
• if the store is empty, a lookup command will now bootstrap the default agency automatically; this error only appears when agencies already exist but none is active

An agency key is rejected as unknown:

• inspect valid keys with the-agency agencies list
• the key is derived from the repo path or repo URL tail and normalized to lowercase kebab-case

A remote repo does not refresh:

• the CLI only attempts git pull --ff-only once per 24 hours for cached repos
• if pull fails, the existing local copy is still used and the response includes a warning

You want storage outside the repo:

• set AGENCY_HOME to move .agency elsewhere

Output Model

Every command emits JSON. That makes the CLI suitable for shell usage, other CLIs, and agent orchestration layers.

Typical response types include:

• agency registry listings
• active agency selection results
• config set/get/list results
• prompt listings
• resolved prompt payloads
• structured error responses