@tanstack/intent

Ship compositional knowledge for AI coding agents alongside your npm packages.

The problem

Your docs are good. Your types are solid. Your agent still gets it wrong.

Docs target humans who browse. Types check individual API calls but can't encode intent. Training data snapshots the ecosystem as it was, mixing versions without flagging which applies. Once a breaking change ships, models contain both versions forever with no way to disambiguate.

The ecosystem already moves toward agent-readable knowledge — Cursor rules, CLAUDE.md files, skills directories. But delivery is stuck in copy-paste: hunt for a community-maintained rules file, paste it into your config, repeat for every tool. No versioning, no update path, no staleness signal.

Skills: the fourth artifact

You ship code, docs, and types. Skills are the fourth artifact — knowledge encoded for the thing writing most of your code.

Skills are npm packages of knowledge — encoding how tools compose, which patterns fit which goals, and what to avoid. When a library ships skills using @tanstack/intent, that knowledge travels with the tool via npm update — not the model's training cutoff. Versioned knowledge the maintainer owns, updated when the package updates.

Each skill declares its source docs. When those docs change, the CLI flags the skill for review. One source of truth, one derived artifact that stays in sync.

Quick Start

For library consumers

Set up skill-to-task mappings in your project's agent config files (CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules, etc.):

npx @tanstack/intent install

No per-library setup. No hunting for rules files. Install the package, run intent install, and the agent understands the tool. Update the package, and skills update too.

List available skills from installed packages:

npx @tanstack/intent list

For library maintainers

Generate skills for your library by telling your AI coding agent to run:

npx @tanstack/intent scaffold

This prints a prompt that walks the agent through domain discovery, skill tree generation, and skill creation — one step at a time with your review at each stage.

Validate your skill files:

npx @tanstack/intent validate

Check for skills that have fallen behind their sources:

npx @tanstack/intent stale

Copy CI workflow templates into your repo so validation and staleness checks run on every push:

npx @tanstack/intent setup

Keeping skills current

The real risk with any derived artifact is staleness. intent stale flags skills whose source docs have changed, and CI templates catch drift before it ships.

The feedback loop runs both directions. intent feedback lets users submit structured reports when a skill produces wrong output — which skill, which version, what broke. That context flows back to the maintainer, and the fix ships to everyone on the next npm update.

CLI Commands

Command	Description
intent install	Set up skill-to-task mappings in agent config files
intent list [--json]	Discover intent-enabled packages
intent meta	List meta-skills for library maintainers
intent scaffold	Print the guided skill generation prompt
intent validate [dir]	Validate SKILL.md files
intent setup	Copy CI templates, generate shim, create labels
intent stale [--json]	Check skills for version drift
intent feedback	Submit skill feedback

License

MIT