Microcosm
This page

Getting started

Working with a coding agent

Most commands on this site will be run by an agent, not typed by a person. This page is the path for that.

The third reading form

Microcosm reads in three forms. The pages here are for people. The Reader digest is for a chat assistant: one smaller file it reads and compresses for you. The repository itself is for a coding agent: an AI that works inside a folder of files rather than a chat tab, such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor. Opened inside the repository, the agent reads the source, runs the components, and checks the result records directly: the same loop this site describes, executed rather than narrated.

The path

No git knowledge is assumed, and nothing here needs typing into a terminal: the agent performs the clone and runs the commands itself.

  1. Install a coding agent. Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor each install from their own documentation; any agent harness that works in a local folder fits.
  2. Give it the prompt below.
  3. Ask in plain language from there.
Clone https://github.com/wcook04/microcosm-substrate and open it. Read AGENTS.md and README.md to orient yourself, run the quickstart check, and show me what the result record says. Then take my questions.

The repository carries its own orientation file for agents, AGENTS.md, so the agent does not arrive cold.

What the agent finds

The repository gives the agent the same material this site projects, in runnable form: the component source under src/, the fixtures each component runs against, validators it can execute, result records accumulating in .microcosm/, and the same scope limits the site prints. The command blocks across this site are written so an agent can execute them verbatim; the quickstart is the usual first request.

Same evidence rules

The agent works under the same boundary the packet states: claims stop where public records stop, and a scope limit bounds authority rather than describing depth. Asking the agent to take one claim from this site and verify it against the source is the intended use, not an adversarial one.

Back to Overview AGENTS.md on GitHub →