Microsoft open-sources AI agent dependency manager APM
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Microsoft has open-sourced APM under the microsoft organization under the MIT license, a dependency manager for AI agents. Users declare the skills, prompts, instructions, plugins, and MCP servers required by a project in an apm.yml file, then run apm install to deploy them to harnesses such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, and Windsurf. According to the report, each installation scans for hidden Unicode characters and pins content hashes; transitive MCP servers are blocked unless explicitly declared or trusted. Homebrew installation is optional.
AI overview based on source reports · Updated 8 hr ago
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- Hacker News AIAPM – A dependency manager for AI agents
APM is a dependency manager for AI agents that lets projects declare skills, prompts, instructions, plugins, and MCP servers in one apm.yml, then run apm install to deploy each primitive to supported harnesses including GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, Windsurf, and Kiro. It uses a lockfile to pin exact versions and content hashes, scans installs for hidden Unicode, and enforces apm-policy.yml at install time including transitive MCP servers. APM is open source under the microsoft org, MIT-licensed, and built on AGENTS.md, Agent Skills, and MCP.
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