Module agentfiles 

The three things semlith setup writes for an agent beyond its MCP registration: the Agent Skill, the steering hook, and the rule block.

Registering the server tells a client that semlith exists. None of these does anything a registration does — they are what makes an agent use it. The skill teaches; the hook catches the moment it forgets; the rule block is for clients that read prose and have no skill directory.

Every path here comes from an annotated fence in docs/clients.md, except the cross-client skill directory below, which belongs to no client. Nothing in this file is a path retyped into Rust.

What this writes, and what it leaves alone

Every file semlith does not own is backed up beside itself before its first write, and every write is reversible:

• The skill is a link into a canonical copy under the store home. Removing the canonical directory removes all of them.
• The hook is one entry in a client’s PreToolUse array. It is found again by the command it runs, so setup --no-hooks takes out exactly the entry semlith put there and leaves every other hook in place.
• The rule block sits between two markers. A second run replaces what is between them; nothing outside them is read or written.

Enums

State

Whether a thing semlith writes is there, absent, or there but out of date.

Constants

SKILL_NAME

The skill’s name, which is its directory’s name everywhere it is linked.

Functions

canonical_skill_dir

The canonical copy every link points at.

explorer_installed

Whether the semlith-explorer agent is written and current.

hook_clients

Every client that documents a PreToolUse hook, with the file it goes in.

hook_state

Where the hook is, per client, for one mode.

install_explorer

Write the semlith-explorer agent for Claude Code, when Claude Code is on this machine (its ~/.claude exists). None when there was nothing to do.

install_hooks

Merge the hook into every client that documents one.

install_rules

Write the rule block into every rules file semlith knows a path for.

install_skill

Write the canonical skill and link it into every documented directory.

installed_mode

The mode a settings file’s semlith hook runs in, if it has one.

remove_explorer

Take the agent out again. Only a file that is semlith’s: one naming itself semlith-explorer in its frontmatter.

remove_hooks

Take semlith’s hook back out, leaving every other hook in the file.

remove_skill

Remove the canonical skill and every link into it.

rules_state

Every client whose rules file semlith knows, and every one it does not.

set_always_load

Set "alwaysLoad": true on Claude Code’s user-scope semlith entry (4.1).

skill_dirs

Every user-level skill directory to link into: the cross-client one, then each one a client documents.

skill_state

Where the skill is, per directory.