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Verify VS Code discovery of bundled plugin agents and settle the agent filename convention #74
Description
🤖 Generated by the Daily AI Engineer
Evidence: VS Code's agent-plugin docs show bundled agents as agents/*.agent.md (their only concrete example), while this repo authors all four bundled agents as agents/<name>.md. Whether VS Code picks up bare-.md agent files from an installed plugin is undocumented — the no-copy claim for agents in the VS Code lane is therefore unverified. Surfaced by Codex review on PR #72.
Audience/problem: VS Code users installing gitops-kubernetes or vibe-coding may get skills and MCP servers but silently no companion agent.
Hypothesis: renaming bundled agents to agents/<name>.agent.md makes them discoverable in VS Code without breaking the other consumers (agent names come from frontmatter name:, not the filename, in Claude Code — verified against its sub-agents docs; Copilot CLI needs the same check).
Success signal: an install test in real VS Code shows the bundled agent appearing in the agent picker, and Claude Code + Copilot CLI still list the agent under its unchanged name.
Smallest useful change: rename the four bundled agent files to *.agent.md, verify all three consumers, update README/ADR 0001 accordingly.
Acceptance criteria:
- VS Code discovery of a bundled plugin agent verified hands-on (agent-picker evidence).
- Claude Code loads the renamed files with unchanged agent names (verified, not assumed).
- Copilot CLI ditto.
- README + ADR 0001 updated to state the verified behaviour.
Size: S (rename + three-consumer verification + docs).
Part of #38.
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devantler commentedon Jul 18, 2026
Scope update: the rename itself landed on PR #72 (
21e63f0) while this issue was being filed — this issue now tracks the verification half only: hands-on discovery checks in VS Code, Claude Code, and Copilot CLI for the renamedagents/*.agent.mdfiles (the first two ACs and the Copilot one). The docs AC is satisfied by #72 itself.devantler commentedon Jul 18, 2026
Scope addition from #72's round-3 review: the hands-on 3-consumer verification should ALSO confirm the built-in tool identifiers per surface.
flux-troubleshooternow listsread, searchalongsideRead, Grep, Glob(both-spellings pattern), butportfolio-surveyorstill carries only the Claude Code spellings (Bash, Read, Grep, Glob) — on VS Code / Copilot CLI it would lack its shell and read tools, and the correct lower-case identifier for the shell tool needs verifying hands-on rather than guessing (a wrong allowlist name fails silently).docs: encode the tools allowlist as a YAML list and sync the .agent.m…
devantler commentedon Jul 20, 2026
Upstream doc research — the two lanes are documented asymmetrically
This issue has been parked as "needs an interactive probe". Part of it is answerable from upstream documentation, so recording that here to narrow what actually still needs a probe.
Workspace lane — bare
.mdIS discovered, explicitly. VS Code's custom-agents doc states it "detects any.mdfiles in the.github/agentsfolder of your workspace as custom agents", with.claude/agentsalso a default location.Plugin lane — undocumented, and only
.agent.mdis ever shown. The agent-plugins doc gives the bundle layout asagents/test-reviewer.agent.md, andplugin.json'sagentsfield is "Path(s) to agent directories. Defaults toagents/." Nowhere does it state whether a bare.mdin a plugin'sagents/folder is discovered. Every example uses.agent.md.So the issue's premise holds: the no-copy claim for the VS Code plugin lane is genuinely unverified, and
.agent.mdis the only form upstream ever demonstrates for plugins.What this does NOT settle
The hypothesis is that renaming to
<name>.agent.mdfixes VS Code "without breaking the other lane" — and that second half is still unverified. Claude Code discovers.claude/agents/*.md; a file namedfoo.agent.mdstill matches*.md, but whether the agent is then addressed asfooorfoo.agentis exactly the kind of thing that needs to be observed rather than reasoned about. I am not going to assert it from the docs.Suggested narrowing
The remaining probe is one question, not two: does Claude Code still resolve a bundled agent by its intended name after the
.agent.mdrename? If yes, the rename is strictly safe and can proceed on documentation alone, since the VS Code plugin lane has no documented bare-.mdsupport to lose.Sources: custom agents, agent plugins
docs: record that VS Code now auto-loads bundled plugin components (#72)
devantler commentedon Sep 6, 2026
Rechecked the remaining verification scope on 2026-09-06. The agent files already use .agent.md; this is still a hands-on discovery and tool-identifier check, not a pending rename. This environment exposes VS Code Insiders, but neither Claude Code nor Copilot CLI is available on PATH or the checked common executable locations. Claude Desktop is present and does not establish Claude Code behavior. The VS Code inspection produced no agent-picker evidence.
The three-consumer acceptance criteria therefore remain unverified. Completing them requires observable installed-agent discovery and a read/shell tool probe in each supported consumer; static filename checks do not discharge those criteria. No installed plugin caches or application configuration were changed during this assessment. Related README onboarding work is independently addressed by #203.
devantler commentedon Sep 25, 2026
Claude Code: verified, 2026-09-25. A Claude Code session in the desktop app on the deployment host exposes every bundled agent from this marketplace in its agent registry, each backed by an installed
agents/<name>.agent.mdin the plugin cache (~/.claude/plugins/cache/devantler-plugins/<plugin>/<version>/agents/):agentic-engineering:agentic-engineeragentic-engineer.agent.mdagentic-engineering:agent-improveragent-improver.agent.mdagentic-engineering:portfolio-surveyorportfolio-surveyor.agent.mdBash, Read, Grep, Globgitops-kubernetes:flux-troubleshooterflux-troubleshooter.agent.mdRead, Grep, Glob, read, search+ the Flux MCP toolsvibe-coding:vibe-coding-companionvibe-coding-companion.agent.mdSo the registry name is
<plugin>:<frontmatter name>and the.agent.mdsuffix does not leak into it — the second acceptance criterion holds. On tool identifiers: Claude Code keeps the lower-caseread/searchspellings influx-troubleshooter's list rather than rejecting the agent, so the both-spellings pattern is at least harmless here; whether those two names grant anything in Claude Code was not probed.Still unverified: VS Code and Copilot CLI. Copilot CLI is not installed on this host, and VS Code Insiders would need this marketplace added to its settings before its agent picker can show anything. Both are installs or configuration changes on the maintainer's machine rather than repository work, so they are left for a session where that is wanted.
devantler commentedon Oct 2, 2026
Fresh consumer probe: VS Code Insiders 1.138.0-insider and its shipped Copilot CLI platform package 1.0.84-4 were examined with disposable local test state. The native CLI registers agentic-engineering 5.6.7 as an enabled external plugin. This proves plugin metadata registration only; it does not prove the named agents or their granted tool identifiers are available.
The dedicated editor workspace is in Restricted Mode, which disables Copilot. The Agents customization view therefore provides no affirmative bundle-discovery result. No workspace trust was changed and no model prompt was run. The earlier Claude result does not establish VS Code/Copilot CLI discovery.
Blocker: confirmation to trust the disposable editor test workspace is pending in the interactive session; the actual VS Code/Copilot CLI agent names and tool identifiers remain unverified. The acceptance criteria stay open. The issue claim is retired while this specific dependency is pending, so it does not reserve unrelated implementation work.