pakx

The universal package manager for AI agent context. One binary. One manifest. Every agent.

pakx is a tiny native CLI that installs skills, MCP servers, subagents, prompts, slash commands, and hooks across every AI agent on your machine (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot, Windsurf, and more) from a single manifest (agents.yml) and lockfile (agents.lock).

It federates existing registries — the official MCP Registry, Smithery, and the first-party pakx-registry — instead of competing with them. Distribution is a single static binary: download, run, done. No Node, no Python, no runtime to manage.

Status

v0.1 — early access. Working today:

Command	What it does
pakx init	Interactive scaffolder for agents.yml.
pakx add <id>	Append a dep to the manifest; best-effort validation against the registry.
pakx install	Resolve every MCP dep via the federated registry, install into Claude Code's project-scoped .mcp.json, and write agents.lock.
pakx list	Show pinned lockfile entries with [ok] / [drift] against on-disk reality.
pakx doctor	5-section health check (manifest, lockfile, drift, adapter detection, on-disk vs lockfile).
pakx search <query>	Federated search across all sources.
pakx login	GitHub-backed login. Validates an API token against registry.pakx.dev/api/v1/whoami and writes ~/.pakx/credentials.json (mode 0600).
pakx whoami	Stored login, or live whoami (--offline skips the network).
pakx pack	Build a deterministic gzipped tarball from a SKILL.md directory.
pakx publish	pack → POST package → PUT tarball. --dry-run skips the upload.
pakx unpublish <owner>/<name>@<version>	DELETE (with grace-period tombstoning on the server side).

In the registry (live at registry.pakx.dev): public browse + signed-in user dashboard + API tokens. Stripe Connect for marketplace payouts is scaffolded but not enabled.

See crates/pakx, crates/pakx-core, crates/pakx-agents, crates/pakx-registry-client.

Install

During early access the installer scripts build from source via cargo install (because cargo-dist prebuilt binaries land at v0.2). Either way the resulting binary is identical.

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://pakx.dev/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://pakx.dev/install.ps1 | iex

Directly via cargo

cargo install --git https://github.com/pakxdev/pakx --locked pakx

All three paths require rustup at this stage. Homebrew tap, Scoop bucket, and Winget manifest ship at v0.2 alongside prebuilt binaries.

Quick start

pakx init                                                       # interactive: creates agents.yml
pakx add io.github.modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem       # add MCP server
pakx install                                                    # resolve + install + write lockfile
pakx list                                                       # show what's pinned
pakx doctor                                                     # diagnose drift / missing agents
pakx search github                                              # browse the federated registry

After pakx install, Claude Code picks up new MCP servers from <project>/.mcp.json automatically.

Publish your own package

pakx login                                                      # one-time
cd path/to/skill                                                # contains SKILL.md
pakx pack                                                       # dry-run: builds <name>-<version>.tgz
pakx publish                                                    # upload to registry.pakx.dev

Manage tokens at registry.pakx.dev/dashboard/tokens. Tokens are hashed at rest and shown once at issue.

Build from source

Requires Rust 1.87+ (toolchain pinned to stable via rust-toolchain.toml).

cargo build --workspace
cargo test --workspace
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings

GitHub Actions is temporarily disabled to control CI billing. Verification is local-first until a release tag is cut.

Crates

Crate	Description
pakx	The binary you install
pakx-core	Manifest, lockfile, install payloads, integrity hashing, credential store
pakx-agents	Adapters for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot, Windsurf
pakx-registry-client	Federated index queries (MCP Registry, Smithery, pakx-registry) + authed pakx_backend client for publish/login

Contributing

PRs welcome. Every change goes through a feature branch + PR + squash merge (no direct main pushes). Local checks before pushing:

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

CI matrix on ubuntu / macos / windows re-enables when the release pipeline lands.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.