Pull your skills, agents, rules, docs, etc. from a central repository and link them into your projects as symlinks — or merge Markdown files across packages into a single, editable file.

Motivation

I made this tool since i could not find a good way to add knowledge and files to multiple projects using AI agents without information rot beginning almost immediately. Updating a change in my sub-agent in multiple projects with the same structure quickly became a nightmare to manage. At first, i sym-linked some files manually, but thought there must be a better way.

Enter cla-linker.

This tool allows me to manage knowledge at a central space and link as many files and directories as needed into my projects, with no assumption on structure. So not only can i share the exact same docs across many projects, i can also share my agents, rules, etc.

Because of the nature of this tool, i am also able to use it with basically any agent harness, which is a plus in a world where the best tool changes almost every week.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 20.12.0

Usage

npx cla-linker <command>

Commands

init

Set up your central package repository (run once).

npx cla-linker init

Prompts for a directory path, creates it, runs git init, and saves the path to ~/.cla-linker.

new <name>

Create a new package in the repository.

npx cla-linker new my-package

Scaffolds <repo>/<name>/ with:

• files/ — place the files you want linked into projects here (non-Markdown files are symlinked; .md files are merged)
• PACKAGE.md — package description
• data.json — install state (git-ignored)

manage (alias: m)

Install or uninstall packages in the current project.

npx cla-linker manage

Opens a checkbox list of all packages. Toggle with Space, confirm with Enter. Already-installed packages are pre-checked. After selection, shows a diff (install/uninstall) and asks for confirmation before applying.

Load order: when 2 or more packages are selected, a reorder prompt appears. Use ↑↓ to navigate, 1 to move an item up, 2 to move it down, Enter to confirm. Packages at the top of the list are applied last and take precedence when files conflict. The order is saved and restored on future runs.

Conflict handling: if a file already exists at a symlink target, you're prompted per-file whether to overwrite (original is backed up with a timestamp suffix) or skip.

Markdown merging: .md files are not symlinked — instead, their content is merged from all selected packages into a single real file in your project. Package content appears above a <!-- ===== USER CONTENT - SAFE TO EDIT BELOW ===== --> marker; anything you write below that line is preserved across reinstalls. When multiple packages contribute to the same .md file, they're concatenated in package-list order (top package first). When you deselect all packages that contributed to a merged file: if you've added content below the marker it's kept as a plain file; if the section is empty the file is deleted.

sync (alias: s)

Re-sync installed packages with the latest content from the central repo. Prunes stale symlinks and creates new ones for any files added to a package since it was installed.

npx cla-linker sync

Options:

• -g, --global — sync all registered projects, not just the current directory
• --watch — watch the central repo for changes and re-sync automatically (Ctrl+C to stop)

ignore (alias: ig)

Add all files from installed packages to .gitignore. Useful when setting up a project — since package files are symlinks, you typically don't want to commit them.

npx cla-linker ignore

Appends missing paths under a managed comment block:

# cla-linker managed — do not edit this block
...
# end cla-linker managed

The command is idempotent — running it again skips entries already present. To version a specific file, remove its line from the block after running this command.

Config

Global config is stored at ~/.cla-linker. Delete this file to reconfigure.