Protostar CLI
protostar is the command-line entry point to Protostar — live, continuous
refinement of agent skills. It is a self-contained binary: no .NET runtime to
install, one file to run.
$ protostar
protostar v0.1.0
Live, continuous refinement of agent skills.
Run protostar --help to see available commands.
The idea in one minute
Most tools treat agent skills like packages: you install a versioned plugin, and it sits frozen until you remember to upgrade it. Protostar treats skills as living organisms instead. You use them in your harness, they sync to a registry, an engine refines and merges them, and improvements are offered back to you — without a version-control deploy in the loop.
The cycle:
use ──▶ sync ──▶ refine ──▶ suggest ──▶ adopt ──▶ use
The protostar CLI is the part of that loop that lives on your machine. It
hooks into your AI harness to capture how you use skills, authenticates
you to a registry so your usage is tagged to you, and (as the loop fills in) will
surface refinements back inside the harness you already work in.
A few terms
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Skill | A reusable capability your agent invokes (for example, a slash-command or tool in your harness). Protostar's job is to refine these over time. |
| Harness | The tool you run your AI agent in. Protostar supports Claude Code today; more harnesses can be added. |
| Registry | The service the CLI syncs to and signs in against. See the Registry docs. |
What you can do today
Protostar is built incrementally. Here is what the CLI does right now:
| Task | Command | Guide |
|---|---|---|
Install the binary and put it on your PATH | protostar install | Installation |
| Connect protostar to your AI harness | protostar install-hooks | Connect your harness |
| Sign in to a registry | protostar auth login | Authenticate |
| Follow the stable or edge release track | install --channel | Choose a channel |
Capture is live: once hooks are installed, protostar sees each skill use and acknowledges it. Syncing those captures to the registry, the refinement engine, and the suggestion push-back are not built yet. The docs call out what is wired up versus what is coming, so you always know what to expect.
Where to go next
- New here? Start with Installation, then Connect your harness.
- Want the full command list? See the Command reference.
- Building or releasing the CLI? See Develop.
Protostar is one of several components, each developed in its own repo with its docs next to the code. The Registry is the service the CLI syncs to.