Overview
context-engineering is an open-source workflow skill for Claude Code and compatible agents, published by addyosmani. Its author describes it as: “Optimizes agent context setup. Use when starting a new session, when agent output quality degrades, when switching between tasks, or when you need to configure rules files and context for a project.”. The project has 98k stars on GitHub and is available under the MIT license. Add it to your setup with `/plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skills`.
What context-engineering does
Feed agents the right information at the right time. Context is the single biggest lever for agent output quality — too little and the agent hallucinates, too much and it loses focus. Context engineering is the practice of deliberately curating what the agent sees, when it sees it, and how it's structured.
What’s inside
The SKILL.md for context-engineering is organised into these sections:
- Overview
- When to Use
- The Context Hierarchy
- Level 1: Rules Files
- Level 2: Specs and Architecture
- Level 3: Relevant Source Files
- Level 4: Error Output
- Level 5: Conversation Management
- Restartable Session Boundaries
- Context Packing Strategies
- The Brain Dump
- The Selective Include
Installation
Add context-engineering to your agent with:
/plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skillsReview a skill’s source before installing it — skills can instruct your agent to run commands. This command comes from the skill’s public repository, which is the source of truth for setup steps. New to skills? Read how to install Claude Code skills.
Supported agents
- Claude Code — ships a claude code plugin marketplace
- Codex — declared in the repository topics
- Cursor — declared in the repository topics
- Antigravity — declared in the repository topics
License
context-engineering is published under the MIT license.
Strengths
- Clear MIT license — safe to read and adapt within its terms
- Ships in addyosmani/agent-skills, an established project with 97,992 GitHub stars
- Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity
- Actively maintained — repository updated in the last 30 days
- Its repository gained 16,916 GitHub stars over the last 52 days
Author
Topics
Alternatives to context-engineering
Similar skills from other repositories:
Frequently asked questions
- What does context-engineering do?
- Optimizes agent context setup. Use when starting a new session, when agent output quality degrades, when switching between tasks, or when you need to configure rules files and context for a project.
- How do I install context-engineering?
- Run /plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skills in your agent, then reload your skills. Review the source at https://github.com/addyosmani/agent-skills before installing.
- Is context-engineering free to use?
- Yes. context-engineering is free and open source under the MIT license, so you can read, run, and adapt it within that license's terms.
- Which agents does context-engineering work with?
- context-engineering lists Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Antigravity — named in its SKILL.md, its plugin marketplace or its repository topics. Skills use the portable SKILL.md format, so other agents that read that format may load it too.
- Where does context-engineering come from?
- context-engineering ships inside addyosmani/agent-skills, a repository that contains 26 catalogued skills in total. The repository's 97,992 GitHub stars apply to that whole collection, not to this skill on its own.
