patterson-platform-docs

The reference library behind the Patterson agent platform.

Vendor documentation, open specifications, and assessments — captured with provenance, so decisions can be traced to what was actually true when they were made.

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Live site

docs.patterson.sh — the reference library for agent platforms.

Why this exists

Agent platforms are moving fast enough that documentation captured a month apart can disagree. When a decision in patterson-corp says "managed settings are winner-take-all" or "marketplace names are a flat namespace," it needs to be checkable against the source as it read at the time — not against a page that has since been rewritten.

Everything here carries a source URL, a capture date, and a completeness note. Where a page could not be captured — client-rendered shells, truncated schemas — that is recorded too, rather than silently omitted.

Note

This is a reference library, not an authority. The cited originals remain the source of truth. Local copies exist for availability and traceability.

Index

references/platforms/ — vendor documentation

Captured 2026-08-11. See _SOURCES.md for the full URL table and per-file status.

Area	Files	Highlights
claude-code/	28	plugin-marketplaces, settings (precedence + managed tier), hooks, skills, sub-agents, mcp, env-vars
copilot/	18	Org/enterprise policy cascade, custom instructions, copilot-instructions.md, coding-agent config
vscode/	18	Agent plugins, agent harnesses, managed settings, profiles, MCP

Two distilled files are worth reading first — they extract only the normative content:

• vscode/_NORMATIVE-agent-plugins.md — the four plugin formats, their manifest paths and root tokens, and the settings keys VS Code shares with Claude Code
• vscode/_NORMATIVE-agent-harnesses.md — session targets, isolation modes, and what constrains MCP in the Copilot harness

references/specs/ — open standards

Spec	Version captured	Notes
agent-skills/	no version string	SKILL.md frontmatter rules. Versioned only by site git history — worth knowing before depending on it
agent-plugins/	1.0.0 Working Draft	Root plugin.json, closed schemas, ${PLUGIN_ROOT} / ${PLUGIN_DATA}
mcp/	2026-07-28	The first breaking redesign. There is no literal "v2" — this revision is what people mean
mcp-apps/	ext 2026-01-26	UI resources and host integration
stitch-design-md/	—	Google Stitch DESIGN.md — the five-section structure and authoring rules
acp/	—	Agent Client Protocol — editor ↔ agent
ahp/	—	Agent Host Protocol — channels, lifecycle, transport
a2ui/	—	Agent-to-UI schemas

Warning

specs/mcp/schema.json is truncated — the upstream file is ~181KB / 3963 lines / 155 $defs; fetching capped at ~132KB. The prefix was verified byte-identical to the baseline. Documented in specs/mcp/README.md.

references/assessments/ — analysis

Written against the material above. These carry judgments, not just facts — read them as of their date.

Document	What it covers
dual-manifest-pattern.md	How one source tree serves Claude, Copilot, and VS Code. The key finding: the two marketplace manifests are byte-identical — projection is a copy, not a transformation.
agentics-and-gh-aw.md	GitHub Agentic Workflows: the compiler, the permission model, and a Patterson adoption path
patterson-sh-inventory.md	Every reusable asset in prior work, with KEEP / ADAPT / DISCARD verdicts
existing-repos-assessment.md	Verdicts on the legacy patterson-agents repositories
_SOURCES.md	Everything read to produce the above

references/prototypes/ — superseded work, kept for traceability

agent-platform-scaffold/ — the original multi-repo scaffolding prototype. Superseded by the shipped platform, but its references/ explain constraints that still hold, particularly the GitHub organization boundary and content resolution order.

decisions/ — ADRs

Architecture decision records for the platform. See also patterson-corp/docs/decisions/.

Conventions

Provenance header	Every captured file opens with source URL, capture date, and completeness
_SOURCES.md	Per-directory table: URL, local path, version, status (ok / partial / blocked)
Gaps recorded	A page that could not be captured is listed as such, never silently dropped
No rewriting	Captured content is preserved as fetched. Analysis lives in assessments/, separately

Refreshing

These are point-in-time captures. Before relying on one for a decision, check its date against how fast that surface moves — Claude Code and VS Code agent documentation change frequently; the open specs less so.

When re-capturing, preserve the old file rather than overwriting it if a decision cites it.

Contributing and references

File	Purpose
CONTRIBUTING.md	How to add or refresh a captured document while keeping the provenance convention intact
REFERENCES.md	Index of every _SOURCES.md location — the authoritative table for each reference section

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