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The fastest path is to make your coding agent fluent in Smithers, then talk to it. You don’t write .tsx workflows by hand. You don’t memorize CLI verbs. You install one skill set into the agent you already use, then ask for an outcome (“add rate limiting and keep iterating until the tests pass”), and the agent reaches for Smithers, picks a ready-made recipe, and drives a durable, multi-step run on your behalf. You drive it through your agent. Three steps. Each is one line your agent runs under the hood, then a sentence you say out loud.
1

Make every agent fluent in Smithers

Two commands wire Smithers into every coding agent on your machine (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, and ~20 more), no per-agent config by hand.
bunx smithers-orchestrator skills add   # one skill per CLI verb, so the agent can run any command
bunx smithers-orchestrator mcp add      # register Smithers as an MCP server in each one
skills add drops a skill for each Smithers command (ps, up, inspect, …) so the agent runs any verb without reading --help first; mcp add wires in the Smithers MCP server. Together they make the agent able to operate Smithers.For the mental model (when to reach for Smithers, the rule that the agent is an orchestrator that runs real work through Smithers rather than its own subagents, plus the full docs bundle it reads on demand), also install the curated smithers skill:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/smithers
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smithersai/smithers/main/skills/smithers/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/smithers/SKILL.md
curl -fsSL https://smithers.sh/llms-full.txt \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/smithers/llms-full.txt
The full per-agent matrix and this curated onboarding skill are covered in Installation and Agent Support.
The Smithers workflow skill loaded inside a coding agent, ready to drive a run from a plain-English request
2

Initialize the repo so the ready-made workflows exist

From inside your project, scaffold the local workflow pack.
bunx smithers-orchestrator init
This drops a .smithers/ folder with task-specific and project-specific workflows already built: implement, plan, research-plan-implement, review, debug, ralph, and more. These are the recipes your agent will pick from. Nothing to author yet.
3

Ask for an outcome, and watch the agent pick a recipe

This is the magic moment. You describe what you want done. The agent matches it to a workflow and starts a durable run.
You: Orchestrate an agent to add rate limiting and keep iterating until the tests pass.
The agent reaches for the implement workflow, wraps it in a loop that re-runs until your test command is green, and reports back when it lands. It survives a crash mid-run. Every finished step is persisted, so a restart resumes from the last completed frame instead of starting over.
You: Give me an ordered plan for adding account-level billing limits. Don’t touch the code.
The agent picks the plan workflow: research and a structured, prioritized plan, no edits to your tree. Approve it, then ask it to implement.
You ask forThe agent reaches forWhat you get
Build it and don’t stop until tests passimplement (looped)A durable run that iterates to green
A plan only, no code changesplanAn ordered, prioritized plan to approve
Research, then plan, then buildresearch-plan-implementThe full chain, gated for your review
Curious what happens under the hood? The Quickstart shows the two commands your agent runs to launch a seeded workflow, and Starters lists every plain-English recipe with the exact command the agent runs for it. You stay in the conversation; the agent operates the CLI.
That’s the whole loop: install the skill, init the repo, ask for an outcome. Any agent, any model, any machine, and the durability comes for free. From here you watch the run unfold and steer it without dropping back to prose.
Smithers driving many different coding agents from a single skill install (any agent, any model, any machine)

Talk to Your Agent

The phrasing that gets the right workflow every time.

Watch and Steer

Follow a live run, clear approvals, and redirect without touching code.

Installation

The full per-agent matrix and the curated onboarding skill.