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Customizing how Tenbi works on your code
Tenbi's agents follow a fixed, quality-gated pipeline — but how they write your PRDs, design your files, and shape your tests is yours to steer. There are four channels, from lightest to most structured. All of them inform the agents; none of them can override Tenbi's operating rules, quality gates, frozen intent, or test immutability — where guidance conflicts with a rule, the agent follows the rule and notes the conflict in its artifact, so you always see the decision.
The four channels
| Channel | What it's for | Where |
|---|---|---|
Your repo's CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md | Conventions that live with the code — agents read them natively | In your repository |
| Optimize (project guide) | Tenbi-maintained map + guide of your repo: stack, commands, conventions | Lane → Optimize |
| Agent overlays | Short standing instructions per agent ("always cite ticket numbers") | Agent Tuning module |
| Skills | Guidance documents per agent — file layouts, testing style, PR templates | Agent Tuning module → Skills |
Skills
A skill is a markdown document attached to one or more agents. At run time each attached agent gets your document alongside its own built-in reference material and an index telling it the document exists; it reads the full text when doing related work. Skills ride every run of every Lane using that module — and they work identically whichever AI provider the run uses.
Which agent gets which skill:
- PRD layout, requirements conventions → PM
- File/function layout, architecture conventions → Architect (+ Developer)
- Testing best practices, test file examples → Test Author — tests are authored there; the QA phase reviews blind on purpose, so guidance goes to the author, not the reviewer
- Code style beyond your linters → Developer
- PR description template → DevOps
Required reading. Marking a skill Required reading changes its instruction from "consult when relevant" to "read before producing your artifact." Use it for must-follow conventions ("build Vue files exactly like this") — it spends context on every run of the attached agents, so keep it for the documents that matter most.
Multiple repos, one Lane. Skills apply wherever they're appropriate: on a Lane spanning a Vue frontend and a C# backend, a Vue structure skill governs Vue files and nothing else — the agent routes it by reading it. For extra clarity, start each skill with a line like "Applies to: frontend repo, Vue single-file components."
Skills vs. your linters. A skill shapes what agents generate; your repo's own lint and build gates make conventions provable — the Developer runs them on every change. For rules important enough that violations should fail the run, encode them in your lint config too. They compose: the skill gets it right the first time, the linter proves it.
Limits. Up to 15 skills per module, 5 per agent, 64KB each.
Where each channel wins
Use the repo file for things every tool should know, Optimize for letting Tenbi maintain the map itself, an overlay for a one-liner you'd otherwise repeat in every skill, and a skill for anything with real structure — templates, examples, layouts. When in doubt, start with a skill: it's named, versioned with your module, and visible per-agent.