AI CORTEX Get started

Open tools. Shared standards.

Give your agents a shared way to work.

Turn individual prompts into reusable capabilities. AI Cortex brings skills, contracts and quality rules to software delivery and project governance.

Start with one skill Explore the library

Open source under MIT. Built for the tools you already use.

The AI Cortex modelFour distinct responsibilities
SkillDo the work.Capability SpecDefine the contract.Structure ProtocolCoordinate the exchange.Interaction RuleSet the constraints.Quality

One library. Clear boundaries.
Capabilities you can reuse across projects.

Bring it to your agent

How installation works

Start with the work in front of you

A useful next step.
A repeatable way to take it.

Choose a task. Find a capability with a defined purpose, process and output. Combine capabilities when the work needs a longer chain.

Delivery & reviewMake the next change reviewable.

Review a diff, check engineering quality, prepare a commit or assemble a release package. Keep criteria explicit and the resulting evidence available.

Read the engineering guide
Governance & planningConnect the plan to the purpose.

Capture requirements, define strategic direction and maintain a roadmap grounded in project evidence. Keep priorities and dependencies traceable.

Read the roadmap guide
Research & opportunityBring evidence to the decision.

Investigate an open question, compare a market or assess a product opportunity. Separate source-backed findings from the decision they inform.

Read the research guide
Browse all skills

The foundation

Good instructions have boundaries.

AI Cortex separates what an agent can do from the contracts and constraints it works within. The result is a library you can compose and maintain.

CapabilitySkill

What can the agent complete?

A single agent follows an objective and execution process to produce a defined output.

Explore skills
ContractSpec

What does this thing look like?

The structural and behavioral contract for an artifact, data model or interface.

Explore specs
CoordinationProtocol

How do the parties interact?

The steps, states and message sequence that coordinate two or more roles.

Explore protocols
ConstraintRule

What must hold true?

An independently verifiable obligation or prohibition, shared by the work and its review.

Explore rules

How it fits together

A shared standard.
From planning to delivery.

An example path through the library. Start with the capability you need; a full workflow is optional.

  1. Frame the work

    Capture the need and retain its purpose, acceptance criteria and strategic connection.

    Capture a work item
  2. Check the evidence

    Review the implementation against engineering rules and check alignment with the approved requirement.

    Understand the quality gates
  3. Prepare the handoff

    Package changes with the validation and release information the next person needs.

    Prepare a release

Make it part of your workflow

One library.
Your environment.

Clone the library and run the installer. It links skills into supported agent environments and syncs user-scoped rules for detected IDEs.

Read the full installation guide
Install AI Cortex

mkdir -p ~/.local/share
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nesnilnehc/ai-cortex.git ~/.local/share/ai-cortex
~/.local/share/ai-cortex/bin/cortex install

Review the commands before running them. The installer reports detected IDEs and any PATH setup needed.

Adopting project quality rules? Read the configuration guide

Before you start

A few useful answers.

Is AI Cortex an agent or an application?

It is an asset library for agents. It supplies callable skills, structural specs, interaction protocols and quality rules. Your existing agent runs the work.

Do I need to adopt everything?

No. Start with a skill that fits a current task. Orchestrator skills combine smaller capabilities for longer workflows. Project-specific governance needs its own explicit adoption. See the adoption guide.

What gets installed?

The installer links skills into ~/.agents/skills and supported IDE locations. User-scoped rules are synced for detected IDEs. Specs, protocols and project-scoped rules stay in the canonical clone for agents to read when needed. See supported installation behavior.

Can I inspect and adapt the library?

Yes. The project is open source under the MIT license. Read the assets, reuse them across projects and contribute improvements through the repository. Read the contribution guide.