Core Concepts
Skills
Section titled “Skills”A Skill is the fundamental unit in Axen. It is a directory containing a SKILL.md file (which holds the instructions for the AI) and optional subdirectories like scripts/, references/, and assets/.
Bundles
Section titled “Bundles”A Bundle is a named collection of skills defined in the manifest (axen.json). Instead of installing skills individually, you can subscribe to a bundle to install all of them at once. Manifests can also designate a bundle as is_default, meaning it will be auto-installed when the source is registered.
Sources
Section titled “Sources”A Source is a Git repository (https://, git@) or a local directory that contains a collection of skills.
Namespaces
Section titled “Namespaces”A Namespace is the logical identifier for a source. For example, pulling from https://github.com/org/go-skills.git automatically assigns it the namespace go-skills.
Targets
Section titled “Targets”Targets are the destination directories where different AI agents expect their skills to reside. Axen comes with over 50+ built-in targets covering both Windows and Unix conventions, including:
- Cursor (
.cursor/rules) - Claude (
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/skills) - GitHub Copilot
- Roo
- Windsurf
- Aider
- OpenHands
Manifest (axen.json)
Section titled “Manifest (axen.json)”The manifest sits in the root of a skill source directory, defining the namespace, skills available, and optionally enforced targets.
Lockfile (axen-lock.json)
Section titled “Lockfile (axen-lock.json)”Axen maintains a lockfile in ~/.axen/axen-lock.json. It tracks all registered namespaces, installed skills, Git refs, updated timestamps, and their respective target installation paths. This ensures Axen knows exactly what is installed and where.