Installation

Lamina works with any AI coding agent and any stack. Install once in your shell, then invoke Lamina with slash commands in agent chat — not with passive natural-language prompting.

Installation does not cause Lamina to activate. After install, open your project root and start a fresh agent session, then run /lamina-init directly.

Quick path

Shell — install the CLI, then install the skills for your agent
Open your project root and start a fresh agent session so the skills load
Agent chat — run /lamina-init <your product domain and primary users>

Continue with Quickstart for the full design → implement → verify loop.

Quick install


curl -fsSL https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh
lamina doctor --json
npx skills add aryaniyaps/lamina --skill '*' -a <active-agent> -y

Use one active-agent target: codex, claude-code, or cursor. Do not use -a '*'; it creates configuration for agents that are not part of this project.

The CLI and skill set have independent release and installation lifecycles. The CLI provides lamina; the GitHub install provides 10 public skills: four workflow entrypoints and six grouped product capabilities. Focused craft guidance is progressively loaded from references inside each capability. Either component can be installed alone, but graph-backed workflows require CLI API 1.

Agent-specific installs

Cursor


npx skills add https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina --skill '*' -a cursor -y

Claude Code


npx skills add https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina --skill '*' -a claude-code -y

Codex / Pi / generic


npx skills add https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina --skill '*' -a codex -a pi -y

Prerequisites

An AI coding agent (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Pi, or similar)
Any framework, database, and UI library — Lamina is stack-agnostic
No Node.js or npm is required for the standalone lamina executable

Node.js/npm are required only for npx skills add. If the compatible CLI is absent, a graph-backed workflow stops before mutation and prints:


Install the standalone Lamina CLI from GitHub Releases, then run lamina doctor --json.

The skills never invoke npx for the runtime and never auto-install it.

The installer verifies the release checksum and writes to ~/.local/bin on macOS/Linux or %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Lamina\\bin on Windows. Add that directory to your user PATH if it is not already present. Unsupported platforms fail before installing anything.

After install

Open the intended project root in your coding agent
Start a fresh agent session — the complete skill set loads at session start
Run init directly in agent chat:


/lamina-init <your product domain and primary users>

Successful init produces and validates both .lamina/business-context.md and .lamina/personas.json. Run init once per project or domain; use /lamina-init update only when the business use case, market, scope, or actor cast materially changes.

If the directory is not a Git project, /lamina-init runs git init -b main before creating evidence. It creates no initial commit and never stages files.

Not sure which command to run? /lamina <what you are trying to do> is an optional router for discovery — not a required setup step and not a substitute for /lamina-init.

Update

Update the components independently:


curl -fsSL https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh
npx skills add aryaniyaps/lamina --skill '*' -a <active-agent> -y

Start a new agent session after updating.

Migrate from the old linked repository package

If an older npm-installed CLI is present, remove it once, then install the standalone executable:


npm uninstall -g @laminadev/cli
curl -fsSL https://github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Do not delete .git/lamina. Existing graph.lbdb data is retained; the new graphd creates its authentication token beside that database.

.gitignore guidance

Lamina writes evidence inputs and optional projections to .lamina/. The canonical Ladybug graph remains clone-local under .git/lamina and is never shared by committing .lamina/.

Approach	When
Commit selected `.lamina/` files	Team wants shared business evidence or non-canonical projections
Gitignore `.lamina/`	Personal experiments; regenerate locally

To exclude:


.lamina/

Uninstall

Remove the Lamina skills using your agent’s skill management tooling, or delete the installed lamina* skill directories. Remove the CLI by deleting ~/.local/bin/lamina (or %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Lamina\\bin\\lamina.exe). .lamina/ artifacts and .git/lamina graph data are not removed automatically.

Source

Lamina is open source under the Apache License 2.0: github.com/aryaniyaps/lamina

Full documentation: lamina.dev

Next steps

Quickstart — run your first cycle
Troubleshooting — if commands are not recognized or init is blocked
What is Lamina? — understand what you installed