Supported harnesses
Where BarnDog installs Skills for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, and how it detects each one.
A harness is a native AI coding tool, such as Claude Code. BarnDog writes your setup into each harness's own configuration, so you keep using the tool exactly as before.
Skill locations
barndog sync links each enabled Skill into the harnesses you selected:
| Harness | Skills are linked into |
|---|---|
| Claude Code | ~/.claude/skills/<name> |
| Codex | ~/.agents/skills/<name> |
| Cursor | ~/.cursor/skills/<name> |
Installation is user-wide: every project on the machine sees the same Skills. A harness reads Skills when a session starts, so open a new session after syncing.
Detection
When you run barndog init, BarnDog checks whether each harness is installed by looking for:
- its command on your
PATH, and - on macOS, its app in
/Applicationsor~/Applications.
An existing Skills folder does not count as an installation. A harness that wasn't detected can still be selected, for example if you install it later or it lives somewhere unusual.
What sync will and won't touch
- Sync only manages the links and entries it created. It never modifies, deletes, or adopts Skills you installed yourself.
- If something unmanaged already exists where BarnDog wants to put a Skill, sync stops and tells you. It does not overwrite it.
- If you deselect a harness and sync, BarnDog removes its links from that harness and leaves the others alone.
Harness notes
Cursor
BarnDog supports local Cursor Agent sessions. Cursor also reads
~/.agents/skills/ and ~/.claude/skills/, so a Skill may appear there even
when Cursor isn't selected. Selecting a harness controls which folders BarnDog
manages; it can't stop one harness from reading another's folder.
OpenCode and Gemini CLI are planned. See the roadmap.