APM Starter

by microsoft

APM Starter is an AI Engineering skill for Claude Code, published by microsoft in apm.

3.5K stars324 forkson microsoft/apmAdded 2026/08/16+1% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/15

View source on GitHub Download repo ZIP

ai-agentsclaude-codecodex-clicontext-engineeringgithub-copilotpackage-managerprompt-engineering

Install in seconds

Install APM Starter

Copy APM Starter into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/microsoft/apm/tree/main/templates/hello-world ~/.claude/skills/hello-world

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/apm.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: templates/hello-world/SKILL.md in microsoft/apm
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/hello-world
Collection: One of 21 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: AI Engineering — 2451 skills

What APM Starter does

APM Starter is a starter package for Agent Package Manager that demonstrates how to create reusable agent primitives like instructions, prompts, and agents. Use it to bootstrap new APM packages or learn the structure.

APM Starter is cataloged under AI Engineering on DirSkills. APM Starter comes from a repository tagged ai-agents, claude-code, codex-cli, context-engineering and github-copilot.

Documentation

README

From the original repository

What This Package Does

This is a starter APM package that demonstrates how to create reusable agent primitives.

Getting Started

apm install your-org/{{project_name}}
apm compile

Available Primitives

Instructions: Guardrails and standards in .apm/instructions/
Prompts: Executable workflows in .apm/prompts/
Agents: Specialized personas in .apm/agents/

Included Workflows

hello-world.prompt.md - A simple hello world workflow
feature-implementation.prompt.md - A feature implementation workflow

Frequently asked about APM Starter

What else does microsoft publish alongside APM Starter?
APM Starter is one of 21 skills that DirSkills catalogs from microsoft/apm, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include APM Issue Autopilot, APM Review Panel and APM Spec Guardian. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way APM Starter does, and is maintained by microsoft in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the microsoft/apm page.
How does APM Starter compare to other AI Engineering skills?
APM Starter ranks #589 by stars among the 2451 AI Engineering skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Architecture Decision Records, AI-First Engineering and Agentic OS. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of APM Starter against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.