Introduction
What Mate is and how it is organized.
Mate is an alpha CLI for running coding agents with project-specific context, policies, and capabilities already wired in.
It uses two repositories:
- companion repository: stores Mate configuration, agent instructions, skills, and capability output
- working repository: stores the project code agents should edit
The default workflow runs from the working repository: mate install,
mate companion link, then mate opencode. Linking selects or clones a
companion and completes the installation of its selected requirements before
the first launch.
Mate resolves the link from the working repository’s local .mate registry,
keeps that metadata out of tracked Git files, and synchronizes the companion’s
managed files into the working repository at launch time. The companion and
working repositories keep separate histories.