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Open source CLI

One file. Every agent.

Capa is an open-source capabilities manager for AI coding agents. Declare skills, tools, and MCP servers in one file. Capa installs them into Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, and 35+ other agents, or wraps a shadow workspace so nothing lands in your repo.

How capa works

  1. Step 1

    Talk it through in one file

    Skills, MCP servers, tools, rules, and hooks live in capabilities.yaml. If it is not in the file, capa will not manage it.

  2. Step 2

    Apply it from the CLI

    capa install fans the file out to your agents and starts the local server. capa wrap does the same in a shadow workspace.

  3. Step 3

    Files land where each agent expects

    Skills, MCP configs, and rules are written into .cursor/, .claude/, and the rest — or into ~/.capa/workspaces if you wrap.

  4. Step 4

    Manage it in the capa UI

    localhost:5912 is the same product as the CLI: edit skills and servers, fill secrets, browse registries.

  5. Step 5

    Watch every tool call

    The activity monitor traces MCP and shell calls live — duration, errors, and which skill pulled the tool in.

capabilities.yaml — my-app
providers:
  - cursor
  - claude-code

options:
  toolExposure: on-demand

skills:
  - id: find-skills
    type: github
    def:
      repo: vercel-labs/skills@find-skills
      requires:
        - '@brave.search'
zsh — capa
$ capa add vercel-labs/skills@find-skills
Added skill find-skills to capabilities.yaml

$ capa install
Installing for cursor, claude-code
 skills/find-skills
Server listening on http://localhost:5912

$ capa wrap cursor
Shadow workspace ~/.capa/workspaces/my-app
Launching Cursor
my-app
NameKind
capabilities.yamlYAML
.cursorFolder
skillsFolder
find-skillsSkill
.claudeFolder
skillsFolder
find-skillsSkill
localhost:5912
Back CAPA my-app Registries Integrations Docs

Project Configuration

Edit capabilities, credentials, and activity for this project

Capabilities Search capabilities...
Plugins 0
Skills 1
find-skills github

Find agent skills on GitHub and add them to the capabilities file.

.cursor/skills/find-skills

Tools 0
Rules 0
Hooks 0
Agents 0
Subagents 0
localhost:5912 — activity
Back CAPA my-app

Activity

Opening events for each agent run — open a run to follow spans live

Live 24 events 0 errors 142ms avg
brave.search MCP 180ms
find-skills MCP 42ms
capa sh brave.search Shell 90ms

What is capa?

Capa is an open-source capabilities manager for AI coding agents. You declare skills, MCP servers, tools, rules, hooks, plugins, and agent instructions in one capabilities.yaml file, then run capa install or capa wrap so Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, and 35+ other agents get the same setup. Capa does not auto-discover leftover files under .cursor/ or .claude/: if a skill or server is not in the file, capa will not manage it. Managed install writes provider configs into the project and starts a local server around localhost:5912. Wrap runs the agent from a shadow workspace under ~/.capa/workspaces so provider files never land in git. Passthrough writes native provider files and skips the capa proxy. Skills can come from GitHub, GitLab, registries, or a local path, and secrets stay out of the file as ${VarName} placeholders. Capa is built by Infragate.

One server, only the tools you need

MCP servers bundle dozens of tools. Capa builds one server that exposes only what your skills actually use.

Reusable skills

Stop duplicating skills across projects. Reference them from GitHub, GitLab, registries, or a local path.

Wrap without polluting the repo

Run Cursor, Claude Code, and other agents from ~/.capa/workspaces so provider configs never land in git.

Any MCP, instantly a CLI

Every configured tool is a command: capa sh <server> <tool>. Same credentials, no wrappers.

Tools load on demand

Agents start with a minimal set and pull the rest when a task needs them. Flip options.toolExposure anytime.

Security in the file

Block dangerous phrases and sanitize skill content before install. Allowed character sets and blocked lists live next to the capabilities.

Install in a minute. Read the docs when you need them.

One binary on your PATH. Then capa init, add a skill, and capa install — or skip the in-repo configs and capa wrap instead.

Need the full path? The installation guide covers upgrades, PATH, and Windows details.

curl -LsSf https://capa.sh/install.sh | sh
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://capa.sh/install.ps1 | iex"