Coding agents

Copybook is built to be driven by coding agents as much as by people. Every surface tells an agent what exists, what needs doing, and which command or tool does each step, and the rules about what an agent may do without asking are explicit.

Set upCopy Anchor Link

copybook init sets up coding agents along with the config. Run it in a new project with npx @copybook/cli init, or again in a project that already uses Copybook.

Running init again only changes what's out of date, and leaves your other MCP servers and the rest of AGENTS.md alone. --dry-run shows the plan, and --no-agent skips these files. Codex keeps MCP servers in its own config, so init prints the command to add it:

codex mcp add copybook -- npx --no copybook mcp

To add only the skill, run npx skills add neon-solutions/copybook.

Start with statusCopy Anchor Link

npx copybook status --json

status reports the config, the definitions, snapshot states, issues, and the latest test and eval results. Its next field lists what to do, in order:

{
  "argv": ["snapshot"],
  "code": "write-snapshots",
  "command": "copybook snapshot",
  "ids": ["acme.cli.init"],
  "safe": true,
  "title": "Write the missing and changed snapshots, then review and commit them.",
  "tool": "write_snapshots"
}

clean is true when there's nothing to do, and runner says how to run the CLI in the project, such as pnpm exec copybook.

The CLICopy Anchor Link

Every command except report takes --json, with the same next steps and an error envelope when it fails. Exit codes are 0 when everything is fine, 1 when a command found problems, and 2 when it couldn't run. See JSON output and exit codes.

The commands agents use most:

copybook list --grep "npm install"  # which definition renders this text?
copybook show <id>                  # everything about one definition, as Markdown
copybook snapshot                   # after editing definitions
copybook check --json               # what's wrong, with diffs
copybook test --json                # syntax and typecheck tests
copybook commands --json            # every command and flag

MCPCopy Anchor Link

copybook mcp serves the project over stdio. Its instructions tell the agent to start with status.

The server starts before copybook init, so its tools can say to run it, and follows file changes while it runs.

StudioCopy Anchor Link

copybook studio has an Agents view with the same next steps, a Run button for the safe ones, the commands to connect each agent, and every CLI command. Each definition has a Copy for agent button that copies it as Markdown.

Agents can use Studio's API directly. copybook studio --json --port 0 prints one line with its URLs, /llms.txt describes every endpoint, and GET /api/status is the place to start. See Studio.

The docsCopy Anchor Link

These docs are written for agents too:

• /llms.txt lists every page, and /llms-full.txt has all of them in one file.
• Every page has a Markdown version at its URL plus .md, and requests that prefer text/markdown get it, the landing page included.
• https://copybook.dev/mcp is an MCP server with list_pages, get_page, and search tools. Add it to Claude Code with claude mcp add --transport http copybook-docs https://copybook.dev/mcp.

What agents may doCopy Anchor Link

• Without asking: read everything, render, write snapshots, and run the syntax and typecheck tests, from the CLI, MCP, or Studio.
• Ask first: snapshot --prune deletes files, test --tier run executes commands for real, and init installs packages.
• CI only: eval gives prompts to agents with their permission prompts bypassed. See Evals.

Studio only takes writes from localhost: it rejects other hosts and cross-site requests, and it's read-only when it listens beyond 127.0.0.1.