Build with an agent

A coding agent can build a Pragmatic application from a description, and it does better than with most frameworks: a declaration is a dozen typed lines it can read, and a PRAG diagnostic is a loop it can close on its own. What it lacks is knowledge of the framework. The Pragmatic skills give it that: 35 folders, one per topic, that an agent loads when a task needs them: which packages to reference, how to lay out the solution, the attributes of each module, the traps, and how to verify the result.

Writing the code yourself? Start at Installation instead.

What an agent needs

• The skills. They are written for a project that consumes the packages, without the framework’s source at hand. Installing them is the one step below.
• The packages. They are on nuget.org as prereleases, with no feed to configure; the pragmatic-nuget-feed skill covers a restore that fails.
• Optionally, the index. llms.txt lists every page of this site for an agent that fetches documentation.

Install the skills

The skills ship as one plugin, pragmatic-design, in the pragmatic-design/skills repository.

Claude Code

claude plugin marketplace add pragmatic-design/skills
claude plugin install pragmatic-design@pragmatic-design

In a session, /plugin shows the plugin, and a skill can be called by name, for example /pragmatic-design:pragmatic-new-app. Updates arrive when the plugin’s version changes: run claude plugin update pragmatic-design@pragmatic-design, or turn on auto-update for the marketplace in /plugin.

With many plugins installed. Claude Code lists every skill to the model with its description, within a budget of 1% of the context window. Over budget, it drops descriptions, starting with the skills used least. A fresh install loses them first, and the agent can then match those skills by name only. /doctor estimates what the listing costs; to raise the budget, set "skillListingBudgetFraction": 0.02 in your Claude Code settings (skills documentation). Calling a skill by name works either way.

Codex

codex plugin marketplace add pragmatic-design/skills
codex plugin add pragmatic-design@pragmatic-design

Start a new session after installing. In a session, /plugins shows the plugin, and $ followed by a skill name calls it explicitly; otherwise Codex picks a skill by its description.

Any other agent

Each skill is a folder with a SKILL.md, in the Agent Skills format, under plugins/pragmatic-design/skills/ in the repository. Copy the folders where your agent looks for skills. For Codex without the plugin, .agents/skills/ in the project or ~/.agents/skills/ for every project; for Claude Code without the plugin, .claude/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/. For another agent, check where it loads skills from. The folders need no change, but copy them all: the module skills link to references kept in pragmatic-ecosystem.

Where to start

The agent chooses skills by their description, so a plain request is enough. Three are entry points:

Skill	For
pragmatic-new-app	Scaffolding a new application: projects, packages, host, first entity
pragmatic-architecture	Deciding how to split an application before writing it
pragmatic-ecosystem	The reference behind the others: packages, patterns, diagnostics, recipes

The rest are one per module (pragmatic-use-persistence, pragmatic-use-actions-endpoints, pragmatic-use-identity, and so on) and load when the task reaches that module.

A first request

Create a Pragmatic.Design application for managing a small library: books, members, loans with a due date. Expose it over HTTP, store it in PostgreSQL, and let only librarians register loans.

A good session then goes through the same steps you would: it sets up the feed, creates the host and a boundary library, declares the entities and the operations, builds, and fixes what the generator reports. Ask it to show the generated code under obj/ when you want to see what the declarations turned into.

Next steps

• Installation: the same path, by hand
• Architecture: the model the agent follows
• Diagnostics: what each PRAG code means