@adobe/data-ai

AI architecture skills + rules for building applications with @adobe/data — a layered, spec-first feature structure (data → services → ui) kept honest by conformance tests. Versioned in lockstep with the library: @adobe/[email protected] targets @adobe/[email protected].

It installs two things:

• skills — build-* commands that scaffold features and applications.
• rules — the path-scoped conventions those skills follow while building.

The rules are the part that evolves often, so install pins the package and re-copies them automatically on every install: bump the version and they refresh — no manual step, no committed diff, no hand-editing.

Quick start

From your project folder root:

1. Install — one command:

npx @adobe/data-ai@latest install

(Claude Code only: also add the skills plugin once — see Claude Code. Cursor/Codex need nothing extra; install copies their skills.)

2. Restart your AI agent so it loads the newly installed skills and rules.

3. Create an application — ask your agent:

/build-application <a description of the app you want>

That's the whole flow. Everything below explains what install does and the other build skills available.

What install does

install does two things: it copies the bundle now (rules → .claude/rules/adobe-data-ai/, and for Cursor/Codex skills → .agents/skills/adobe-data-ai/), and it wires the repo so future installs self-update, editing your package.json and .gitignore to:

1. pin @adobe/data-ai in devDependencies at the exact version it just resolved (never a range, so a later install can't silently pull an unreviewed release);
2. add data-ai install to your own postinstall script (chaining if one exists) — it must be your script: pnpm does not run a dependency's lifecycle scripts, so a postinstall shipped inside the package would silently not fire;
3. gitignore the managed bundle folders.

Each managed folder also gets a short "externally managed — do not edit" notice so an agent that opens it is warned before touching the regenerated files. The notice follows your repo's instruction convention: it is written as AGENTS.md by default (the cross-agent standard, which Claude Code also reads) and only as CLAUDE.md for a repo that is still CLAUDE.md-only. install never drops a CLAUDE.md into a repo that uses AGENTS.md — a stray CLAUDE.md anywhere makes Claude Code ignore every AGENTS.md project-wide.

The copied files are regenerated artifacts — never committed, never edited in place. The wiring is idempotent, so re-running is harmless; with --global or in a directory with no package.json, install just copies (no wiring).

After that first run, sync your lockfile with a normal install (pnpm install) so the pinned dev-dependency is recorded; from then on every install refreshes the bundle via the postinstall.

Why @latest for the first command but a pinned version afterward? The one command you type is a one-time, human-initiated bootstrap, so @latest is fine (the same posture as npm create …@latest). The part that repeats — every teammate's and CI's install — runs from the exact version install pinned into your devDependencies, never a moving tag, so no unreviewed release ever auto-executes. Pinning happens where it matters, automatically.

Update: bump the @adobe/data-ai version in package.json and install again. That's it.

Claude Code — add the skills plugin (one time)

Claude Code loads skills from a marketplace plugin, not from .claude/skills/, so its skills are a separate one-time install (the install step above already handles the rules for Claude Code):

claude plugin marketplace add adobe/data --scope project
claude plugin install adobe-data-ai@adobe-data-skills --scope project

(Interactive sessions can use /plugin marketplace add adobe/data then /plugin install adobe-data-ai@adobe-data-skills.) Update the skills: claude plugin update adobe-data-ai. Cursor/Codex need no plugin — install copies their skills too.

Just the files, no managed dependency

If you don't want the auto-update wiring — a throwaway scaffold, a non-Node repo, or you'd rather commit the bundle and update it on your own schedule — run install where it can't wire (no package.json, or pass --global), or simply delete the postinstall/dev-dependency lines it added. Re-running install is always a clean wipe-and-recopy; you then update by re-running it yourself.

Build skills

Step 3 above uses build-application; the skills are available by name:

• build-application — build a whole app: a base feature that hosts lazily-loaded peer features.
• build-feature — build one feature end to end. Pipes the per-layer skills (data → core-database → transactions → … → ui), then conformance-tests the result against its pure data/ spec.

Both compose finer-grained skills that are installed alongside and discoverable by name when you want a single phase or a specialized flow: build-data, build-core-database, build-indexes, build-transactions, build-computed, build-services, build-service-database, build-actions, build-systems, build-ui, build-app-entry; plus build-game, meta-build (phase-by-phase in subagents), review (audit output against the rules), and structure (reason about layout).

One-liner: install + build an app (headless)

Paste this into an agent already running in your project root, replacing the quoted text with your own app description. It installs the bundle, then runs build-application on your prompt:

Set up @adobe/data-ai in the current directory: run
`npx @adobe/data-ai@latest install` (this copies the bundle and pins the exact
version so rules auto-update on every install). On Claude Code also add the
skills plugin per the package README. Then use its /build-application skill to
build <prompt here>