Symposium
Symposium scans a Rust workspace, matches plugins against its dependency graph, and installs the corresponding skills, hooks, and MCP servers into the AI coding agents you use. Extensions are authored by crate authors and distributed through plugin sources, so an agent working in your project sees guidance specific to the crates that project depends on.
It ships as cargo agents, a Cargo subcommand. One agent-agnostic configuration is translated into the per-agent files each supported agent expects, so different people on the same project can use different agents.
Contents
Requirements
- A Rust toolchain with
cargo on PATH. Symposium runs cargo metadata to read the dependency graph and cargo install to update itself.
- At least one supported agent installed.
- Linux, macOS, or Windows.
Installation
Install with cargo binstall (prebuilt binary) or cargo install (from source):
cargo binstall symposium # or: cargo install symposium
On Arch Linux, install the symposium package from the official repositories:
pacman -S symposium
Both provide the cargo-agents binary, invoked as cargo agents.
Quick start
Run init once per machine to record which agents you use and register hooks:
cargo agents init
init prompts for your agents (select one or more) and for hook scope:
Which agents do you use? (space to select, enter to confirm):
> [ ] Antigravity CLI
[ ] Claude Code
[x] Codex CLI
[ ] GitHub Copilot
[ ] Goose
[x] Kiro
[x] OpenCode
- Global hook scope (default) registers Symposium for the selected agents in your home directory, so it activates in every Rust project.
- Project hook scope writes hooks into the current project only; run
cargo agents sync once in each project to activate it there.
After setup, start your agent inside a Rust workspace as usual. With auto-sync enabled (the default), Symposium re-scans dependencies on each hook invocation and keeps the installed skills current. You can also run a sync explicitly:
cargo agents sync
Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| Skill | A SKILL.md file (and its directory) containing guidance the agent loads as context. |
| Hook | A check or transformation that runs when the agent performs an action, such as writing code or running a command. |
| MCP server | Tools and resources exposed to the agent over the Model Context Protocol. |
| Plugin | A manifest that bundles skills, hooks, MCP servers, and subcommands, each gated by crate predicates. |
| Plugin source | A directory or git repository containing plugin manifests. The central recommendations repository and ~/.symposium/plugins/ are enabled by default. |
How matching works
Symposium reads the workspace dependency graph and evaluates each plugin's and skill's predicates against it. An extension is installed only when its predicates match.
- The
depends-on field matches by crate name and version requirement (serde, serde>=1.0, *).
- The
predicates field uses function-call syntax (depends-on(...), shell(...), path_exists(...), env(...)), combined with not, any, and all.
A crate can ship its own plugin, and a manifest can load it with a [[plugins]] source.cargo reference: Symposium fetches the crate's source (from the local path, the cargo registry cache, or crates.io), reads its Symposium.toml and [package.metadata.symposium] to locate the skills, and follows the crate's own references. See the predicates reference.
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|
cargo agents init | Record your agents and register hooks (writes ~/.symposium/config.toml). |
cargo agents sync | Match plugins against workspace dependencies and install/refresh skills. |
cargo agents plugin | Inspect and manage plugin sources. |
cargo agents self-update | Install the latest published version. |
cargo agents crate-info | Resolve and fetch a crate's source (used by agents). |
Global flags include -v/--verbose (decision trace), --json (structured output), and -q/--quiet. See the command reference.
Configuration
Configuration is a single user-wide file at ~/.symposium/config.toml, created by init. The top-level keys:
| Key | Default | Description |
|---|
auto-sync | true | Run cargo agents sync automatically during hook invocations. |
agents-syncing | true | Mirror user-authored skills from .agents/skills/ into agents that use their own skill directory. |
hook-scope | "global" | Install hooks in the home directory (global) or the project (project). |
auto-update | "on" | off, warn (notify when a newer version exists), or on (install and re-exec). |
[[agent]] entries list your agents, [[registry]] adds git or local plugin sources, and [defaults] toggles the two built-in registries. User data lives under ~/.symposium/ (overridable via SYMPOSIUM_HOME or the XDG variables). See the configuration reference.
Supported agents
Every agent receives skill installation. Hook registration is available for a subset; OpenCode and Goose are skills-only.
| Agent | Skill directory | Hooks |
|---|
| Antigravity CLI | .agents/skills/ | Yes |
| Claude Code | .claude/skills/ | Yes |
| GitHub Copilot | .agents/skills/ | Yes |
| Codex CLI | .agents/skills/ | Yes |
| Kiro | .kiro/skills/ | Yes |
| OpenCode | .agents/skills/ | No |
| Goose | .agents/skills/ | No |
For crate authors
If you maintain a Rust crate, you can ship skills, hooks, and MCP servers so AI-assisted users of your library get guidance matched to the exact version they depend on. Add a skills/ directory to your crate (and a Symposium.toml for hooks and MCP servers), and users who depend on it enable it with one confirmation.
See Supporting your crate and Authoring a plugin.
Documentation
Full documentation lives at symposium.dev: installation, configuration, plugin and hook authoring, supported-agent details, and design notes.
Community
Symposium is open source under MIT or Apache-2.0. We welcome contributors and maintain a code of conduct.
