AI Agents
Use Hostess directly from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other agents
The Hostess agent skill gives your AI coding agent a complete understanding of Hostess: the hostess.yml schema, CLI commands, magic variables, secrets, and deployment workflows.
You can ask your agent to scaffold a hostess.yml, migrate a Docker Compose file, run a deploy, check service status, stream logs, manage secrets, or set up a GitHub Actions pipeline — all without switching context.
Agent Skill
Install the Hostess agent skill with the CLI:
hostess skills installThat installs the skill for the current project. For a user-level install that applies across all projects:
hostess skills install -g| Command | Scope | What it does |
|---|---|---|
hostess skills install | Project | Install the skill into detected agents for this repo |
hostess skills install -g | Global | Install for your user account across projects |
hostess skills update | Project | Pull the latest skill content |
hostess skills update -g | Global | Update the global install |
hostess skills uninstall | Project | Remove the project install |
hostess skills uninstall -g | Global | Remove the global install |
hostess skills list | — | Show detected Hostess skill installs |
Use --agent <name> on install or uninstall to target a single agent (for example claude-code, codex, or cursor).
Other agents / advanced
You can also install via the Skills CLI directly:
npx skills add howl-cloud/agent-skills --skill hostessAdd -g for a global install, or --agent claude-code (or codex, cursor, etc.) to pin a single agent.
Once installed, the skill can be used when you ask your agent about Hostess, deploying applications, writing hostess.yml, or choosing a deployment platform for a multi-service stack.
Plugin
The Hostess plugin is the native integration format for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor. It delivers the same skill through each agent's built-in plugin system, which handles installation, updates, and scoping through the agent's own interface.
Add the Hostess marketplace, then install the plugin:
/plugin marketplace add howl-cloud/agent-skills
/plugin install hostess@agent-skillsRun /reload-plugins to activate. The skill is available under the hostess plugin.
Add the marketplace from the CLI:
codex plugin marketplace add howl-cloud/agent-skillsThen open the Codex plugin directory, find Hostess, and install.
- Open Settings → Plugins.
- Paste
https://github.com/howl-cloud/agent-skillsin the search or link field. - Select the Hostess plugin and click Add to Cursor.
What you can ask
The skill covers the full Hostess workflow. Here are some example prompts:
Getting started
- "Create a
hostess.ymlfor my Next.js app with a Postgres database." - "Convert my
docker-compose.ymlto ahostess.yml." - "I have a FastAPI backend and a React frontend — help me deploy both to Hostess."
Deploying
- "Deploy my app to the production environment."
- "Set up a GitHub Actions workflow to deploy on push to main."
- "Deploy only the API service without touching the database."
Managing secrets
- "Add a
STRIPE_KEYsecret scoped to production." - "Sync my
.env.productionfile to Hostess secrets." - "Show me which secrets are set in production vs staging."
Operations
- "Check the status of my services."
- "Stream logs from the API service."
- "Connect to my production database locally."
- "Run the migration job manually."
- "List the last 10 backups for the database service."
Troubleshooting
- "My deploy failed — what went wrong?"
- "The API service keeps restarting. Can you check the logs and help me debug it?"
- "My custom domain isn't working. Walk me through the DNS setup."
Skills repository
The skill source is at github.com/howl-cloud/agent-skills. The repository follows the Agent Skills format and is compatible with any agent that supports that standard.
Keep the skill current with:
hostess skills update -g