mdm agents¶

Manage the list of AI agents mdm should support by default.

The configured agent list is the single source of truth for which agents skills are installed to. It is read whenever mdm skills add needs to know which agents to target and is updated automatically when you pick agents interactively.

Agent categories¶

Agents fall into three categories that determine whether they need explicit configuration:

Category	Description	Needs tracking?
Shared skills dir	Uses `.agents/skills` — skills are auto-installed	Only if they also have a unique instructions file
Uses AGENTS.md	Reads `AGENTS.md` natively for instructions	Only if they also have a unique skills dir
Both (no tracking)	Shared skills dir + AGENTS.md (or no instructions file)	Never — always supported automatically

Agents in the "both" category (Codex, Gemini CLI, Warp, Replit, etc.) appear as always included in every picker and are never added to configuredAgents. Agents with a unique skills directory or a non-AGENTS.md instructions file (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, etc.) must be explicitly configured.

Why configure agents?¶

Without a configured list, mdm skills add prompts you to pick agents every time. Once you run mdm agents add, your preferred agents are pre-selected in every future install prompt — and mdm skills add --yes installs to exactly that list without prompting at all.

mdm rules link also updates configuredAgents automatically when you select agents interactively.

Scopes¶

Agent lists are stored per scope alongside the skill lock file:

Scope	Storage
Project	`skills-lock.json` in the project root
Global	`~/.agents/skills-lock.json`

Use --global / -g to read and write the global list. The default is project scope.

Commands¶

mdm agents list            Show configured agents for project scope
mdm agents list -g         Show configured agents for global scope
mdm agents add             Interactively pick agents to configure
mdm agents add <agents...> Add specific agents by name
mdm agents remove          Interactively remove agents
mdm agents remove <agents> Remove specific agents by name

mdm agents list¶

Shows the configured agents for the chosen scope. Agents that are detected as installed on your machine are marked with a ✓.

Project scope agents:

  Claude Code               ✓ installed
  Cursor                    ✓ installed
  Windsurf

If no agents are configured yet, the command tells you how to set them up.

Flags¶

Flag	Description
`--global, -g`	List global configured agents
`--available`	List every agent mdm knows about, not just the ones in the configured list
`--json`	Output as a JSON array (name, displayName, scope, installed)

mdm agents add¶

With no arguments, opens a searchable multiselect. Agents that are always supported automatically (shared skills dir + AGENTS.md) are shown in a locked panel to the right of the prompt — they require no configuration and cannot be deselected. Your current configured list is pre-checked in the left panel. Confirming replaces the entire list with your selection.

Which agents do you want to configure?  │  always included:
  > filter...                           │  ◉ Codex
  ❯ ◉ Claude Code                      │  ◉ Gemini CLI
    ◉ Cursor                           │  ◉ Warp
    ○ Windsurf                         │  ...
    ○ Cline
  type to filter · space to toggle · enter to confirm

When called with agent names, those agents are appended to the existing list (duplicates are ignored).

# Interactive picker — replaces the current list
mdm agents add

# Append specific agents
mdm agents add claude-code cursor

# Configure global agents
mdm agents add --global claude-code

Flags¶

Flag	Description
`--global, -g`	Add to global configured agents

mdm agents remove¶

With no arguments, shows a multiselect of your currently configured agents with nothing pre-selected. Check the agents you want to remove, then confirm before any changes are made.

Which agents would you like to remove?
  > filter...
  ❯ ○ Claude Code
    ○ Cursor
    ○ Windsurf
  type to filter · space to toggle · enter to confirm

Remove 1 agent(s): Windsurf? [y/N]

After removing agents from the configured list, mdm also cleans up the files that belong exclusively to each removed agent:

Skills directory — the agent's own skills folder (e.g. .claude/skills/, .cursor/skills/) is removed if it exists. The shared .agents/skills/ directory is never touched.
Instructions file — the agent's instructions file (e.g. CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules, .github/copilot-instructions.md) is removed. The shared AGENTS.md is never touched.

# Interactive removal
mdm agents remove

# Remove specific agents
mdm agents remove cursor

# Remove from global list
mdm agents remove --global cursor

Flags¶

Flag	Description
`--global, -g`	Remove from global configured agents
`--yes, -y`	Skip the confirmation prompt before removing files (use in CI / scripts)

Integration with mdm skills add¶

When mdm skills add needs to determine which agents to install to:

If --agent is passed explicitly, those agents are used.
If configured agents exist for the scope, they are used as the default selection (pre-checked in the picker, or used directly with --yes).
If no configured agents exist, the picker falls back to detected installed agents.

# Configure once
mdm agents add claude-code cursor

# Every subsequent install targets claude-code + cursor by default
mdm skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills
mdm skills add anthropics/skills --yes     # no prompt needed

Agent names¶

Agent names are the machine names used with --agent flags across all commands. Run mdm skills add --help and look at --agent completions, or browse the list with mdm agents add (interactive picker shows all supported agents).

Common names: claude-code, cursor, windsurf, cline, roo, github-copilot, gemini-cli, codex, opencode.