Skills & extensions

Aethon's UI, themes, slash commands, layouts, and event interceptors are all registerable. Anything you'd think of as "the chrome" can be replaced or augmented by an extension. This page is the user-facing overview; for the full authoring guide see the bundled docs/aethon-agent/extensions.md reference (also available inside the running app at Cmd+P → "Open agent docs").

What an extension can register

Surface	API	Example
A2UI components	aethon.registerComponent(type, template)	Replace chat-history, add team-status.
Themes	aethon.registerTheme({ id, label?, vars })	Drop-in palette.
Layouts	aethon.registerLayout({ id, name, description?, payload })	Sibling to workstation (the only built-in).
Slash commands	aethon.registerSlashCommand({ name, description, usage? }) paired with onEvent	/team-deploy, /standup.
Keybindings	aethon.registerKeybinding({ combo, action?, description? }) paired with onEvent	Override or add.
Menu items	aethon.registerMenuItem({ label, action, location?, id?, parent? }) paired with onEvent	Native menu entries.
Event handlers	aethon.onEvent({ componentType, descendantId? }, handler)	Wire a registered surface to its action.
Event routes	aethon.registerEventRoute({ componentId?, eventType? })	Intercept App-dispatched events.
Sidebar sections	aethon.registerSidebarSection({ id, title, items })	Custom sidebar group.

Most of the register* calls record metadata only. The action is attached separately via aethon.onEvent({ componentType, descendantId }, handler) — keeping registration declarative and handlers separately addressable so a layout can intercept or replace either half.

Full signatures live in Runtime API reference.

Three install paths

1 — User-level extensions

Drop a .ts file into ~/.aethon/extensions/:

~/.aethon/
└── extensions/
    └── my-helper.ts

Aethon's bridge hot-reloads it: edit the file, save, and the extension re-runs without a relaunch. The chat shows an extension_lifecycle event for every load / fail / reload so you get visible feedback.

2 — npm-distributed skills

Some extensions ship as npm packages with an aethon field in their package.json manifest:

{
  "name": "@my-org/aethon-team-skills",
  "aethon": {
    "entry": "dist/index.js"
  }
}

Install them with the in-app slash command — runs from the Tauri shell (not the agent sidecar, so the install can't kill itself mid-flight):

/extensions install @my-org/aethon-team-skills
/extensions install github:my-org/aethon-team-skills
/extensions install https://github.com/my-org/aethon-team-skills.git

The command runs the equivalent of npm install --prefix ~/.aethon/skills <spec> and restarts the agent sidecar so the next request loads the new package. npm specs, tarballs, GitHub shorthands, and git URLs are all accepted; shell-like option / whitespace input is rejected.

You can also install manually if you prefer:

npm install --prefix ~/.aethon/skills @my-org/aethon-team-skills

Aethon discovers everything under ~/.aethon/skills/node_modules/ whose package.json has the aethon field, and loads its declared entry.

3 — Project-local extensions

Drop a .aethon/extensions/ directory anywhere up to your project's git root:

my-repo/
├── .git/
├── .aethon/
│   └── extensions/
│       └── team-slash-commands.ts
└── src/

Tabs opened in my-repo/ (at any depth) load these automatically. Project-local extensions are great for team-wide slash commands or internal tooling that shouldn't pollute the user's global setup.

TIP

Discovery is a walk — Aethon starts at the active tab's cwd and walks up to its git root. Extensions found anywhere on the way are loaded.

Listing what's loaded

The /extensions slash command lists every loaded extension with:

• Source (user, project, npm).
• Registered components, themes, slash commands, keybindings, layouts.
• Last reload timestamp.
• Any error.

The same data is available inside the agent via aethon.listExtensions(), aethon.listComponents(), aethon.listThemes(), and the runtime snapshot (aethon.getRuntimeSnapshot()). Aethon also writes the snapshot to ~/.aethon/state.json on every change — cat it for a quick view without an introspection round-trip.

Lifecycle and feedback

Every extension load surfaces an extension_lifecycle chat event so you can see at a glance when something loaded, reloaded, or failed. Layouts can intercept this event to substitute a toast, sidebar pulse, or status pill.

A failing extension does not crash Aethon — the error is logged, the chat-side event reports the failure, and other extensions continue loading.

Authoring an extension

For a worked example, see the bundled docs/aethon-agent/extensions.md (inside the running app under "Reference" or in the GitHub repo).

The minimum is:

// ~/.aethon/extensions/hello.ts
globalThis.aethon.registerSlashCommand({
  name: "hello",
  description: "Say hi.",
  usage: "/hello",
});

globalThis.aethon.onEvent(
  { componentType: "slash-command", descendantId: "hello" },
  (_event, ctx) => {
    ctx.pi.notify("Hello from Aethon!");
  },
);

Save → wait for the extension_lifecycle event → run /hello.

Where to next

• Layouts — registering layouts and the slot contract.
• Themes — registering palettes.
• Runtime API — full aethon.* surface.