Guides

Extensions

Turn team knowledge and existing Autohand capabilities into portable, versioned building blocks—or choose the Agent SDK when the extension belongs in your own application.

Build the right kind of extension

These guides start with product and architecture decisions, then move through package composition, a barebone CLI profile, contribution design, lifecycle policy, and distribution. For hands-on builds, continue to the Extensions tutorials.

Start here

Choose an extension model

Compare CLI extensions, the Code Agent SDK, meta-tools, external agents, skills, MCP, and hooks by ownership and runtime needs.

Architecture guide

Design an extension package

Set a narrow capability boundary, choose declarative or trusted runtime contributions, and plan validation before writing files.

Package design
Composition

Barebone CLI + extensions

Start Autohand with minimal ambient behavior and layer in only the project extensions your workflow needs.

Minimal runtime guide

Compose tools and agents

Design shell-backed tools, focused reviewers, tool allowlists, and evidence-oriented prompts that work together.

Contribution design
Migration

Adapt a Pi package

Map Pi skills, tools, commands, UI, hooks, providers, and permission policy to Autohand's declarative and trusted runtime layers.

Pi compatibility guide

Scopes, security, and lifecycle

Choose user or project ownership, understand precedence, and operate installation and updates without bypassing authorization.

Operations guide

Distribute and maintain

Version packages, test copied installations, publish immutable source releases, and evolve the API safely.

Release guide

What extensions add to existing CLI features

Existing featureExtension package benefit
Meta-toolsBundle one or more tools with an id, version, scope, ownership, atomic installation, and diagnostics.
External agentsShip focused agent prompts beside the tools they depend on and retain package provenance.
Permission manager and hooksReuse the same authorization and lifecycle path rather than inventing a second executor.
User and project configurationChoose capabilities that follow a developer or stay owned by one repository.
Interactive, sub-agent, teammate, RPC, and ACP runtimesDiscover one deterministic extension snapshot across supported entrypoints.
Bare modeKeep ambient startup integrations disabled while retaining explicitly installed declarative capabilities and reviewed runtime extensions.