MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack

English · 中文

The workflows and skills the MiniMax Code team uses to build MiniMax Code. Open source, install and use.

This is not a prompt collection or a list of "best practices". It is what people on the team actually use every day: how to keep AI-written code at a high bar, how to decide whether a task should go to a subagent, how long to wait on a long command, how to keep long sessions from going dull, and what goes into context on every turn. Each piece is a SKILL.md skill or checklist that installs straight into MiniMax Code.

• Quick start
• What's inside
• How it works
• Articles
• Stacks
• Contributing

Quick start

Claude Code, one command. The command adds this marketplace and installs a whole stack. In a shell:

claude plugin install ronny --marketplace MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack

Inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin install ronny --marketplace MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack

Use jiachen in place of ronny for that stack. From a clone of this repository, scripts/install.sh installs ronny (scripts/install.sh jiachen for that stack) with claude or codex when either is on PATH, and otherwise copies that stack's skills into ~/.agents/skills/.

Older Claude Code can add the marketplace first, then install:

/plugin marketplace add MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack
/plugin install ronny@mcode-stack

Codex. Add the marketplace, then install from the Plugins Directory or the CLI:

codex plugin marketplace add MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack
codex plugin add ronny@mcode-stack

Substitute jiachen the same way. To take a single skill instead of the plugin, copy that skill's folder into ~/.agents/skills/. Codex and MiniMax Code both scan that directory; the copy steps are below.

One skill, for all your projects:

git clone https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack.git ~/mcode-stack
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
cp -R ~/mcode-stack/stacks/ronny/skills/long-command-check ~/.agents/skills/

Open a new session and type /skills in MiniMax Code to see it. Run it with /long-command-check, or let the agent load it from its description.

The whole stack, as a plugin:

mcode plugin marketplace list    # shows your local plugin directory

Copy the whole stacks/ronny directory into that directory, then open /plugins in MiniMax Code and press Ctrl+R to refresh. A local plugin is installed as soon as it is in that directory; press Space in the panel to enable or disable it.

Every stack, from the MiniMax Code marketplace:

This repository is also a plugin marketplace, so you can install a stack without copying files and pick up updates later. In MiniMax Code desktop, open Plugins, choose Add marketplace and enter MiniMax-AI/mcode-stack; each stack then shows up as one plugin you can install, update or uninstall. Adding marketplaces is rolling out gradually, so your version may not have it yet.

What's inside

| When | Skill | What it does | | --- | --- | --- | | Plan & split | subagent-split-check | Decide whether work goes to a subagent or stays in the main loop | | | engineering-small-prs | Split large features, refactors and migrations into small reviewable PRs | | | engineering-change-descriptions | Write PR and commit descriptions that say what changed and why | | Context & tools | tool-budget-audit | Measure what tools cost in context; trim, tool search or programmatic tool calling | | | context-tax-audit | What gets injected into every request, and what it does to the prompt cache | | Long sessions & commands | long-session-check | Drop, summarize or write to file; compact or start fresh; memory scoping | | | handoff-doc | A hand-off doc so a new session can pick up the work | | | long-command-check | Ten-point audit of long shell commands and background tasks | | Review | independent-review | Review a diff from a clean context: only diff, requirement and test results | | | engineering-code-review | Review a change for code health: design, functionality, complexity, tests, approval risk | | | engineering-review-comments | Write clear, severity-labeled review comments that explain the reasoning | | | engineering-review-feedback | Handle reviewer comments as the author: fix, clarify, resolve disagreements | | Experiments & hotfixes | harness-experiment | Small eval, one change at a time, repeated runs, look at flipped tasks | | | trajectory-review | Look at how the agent got its result, not only whether it passed | | | engineering-emergency-changes | Decide whether a hotfix is a real emergency and run expedited review safely |

The table above is stacks/ronny. stacks/jiachen adds lifting-loops, which finds the loops where you keep acting as a manual step for your agents and lifts you out of them, and making-content, which turns notes and material into Xiaohongshu image posts and short vertical videos.

A stack usually has three kinds of things:

| Kind | What it is | How to use it | | --- | --- | --- | | Skill | A directory with a SKILL.md | Invoke it in MiniMax Code with /, or let the agent load it from its description | | Checklist | Also a skill: the agent walks your project item by item. A plain-text copy lives in checklists/ | Same as above, or just read it | | Workflow | A WORKFLOW.md describing how this person works with MiniMax Code every day | Read it |

How it works

AI writes code faster every month. What separates results now is the layer of engineering habits around the agent: when to make it stop and check its own work, who reviews, where state lives, what counts as a real experiment. Those habits are hard to follow from an article, so we turned them into skills and checklists. They pair with our MCode Engineering Notes column: the article explains the idea, this repository makes it runnable.

We also believe harness engineering is a craft that moves forward by experiment. Everything here will keep changing as we learn. Take it and change it. To suggest a change here, open an issue; see Contributing.

Articles

| # | MCode Engineering Notes | Companion skills | | --- | --- | --- | | 01 | More subagents isn't better: manage context first, then parallelize | independent-review, subagent-split-check, harness-experiment | | 02 | Too many tools will eat your context: from tool search to PTC | tool-budget-audit | | 03 | Keeping long sessions sharp: compaction vs. memory | long-session-check, handoff-doc | | 04 | How long should one bash command wait: from foreground blocking to background tasks | long-command-check | | 06 | The hidden tax on every turn: what an agent puts into context (upcoming) | context-tax-audit |

Stacks

stacks/ronny/               Ronny's stack (MiniMax Code R&D lead), the first and most complete one
stacks/jiachen/             Jiachen's stack: getting out of the agent loop, and turning notes into posts and videos
stacks//              One directory per team member; teammates are welcome to add theirs
notes/                      Which runnable piece goes with each Engineering Notes article
community/                  Stacks from outside the team, added by collaborators
templates/stack-template/   Template for a new stack

Every stack is also a MiniMax Code plugin package. See stacks/ronny and stacks/jiachen for what each one contains.

Contributing

Issues and discussion are welcome. For now, pull requests for code, documentation, and stacks are accepted only from repository collaborators. If you are not a collaborator, open an issue to discuss first.

We still want to hear how you work with MiniMax Code, or any other agent, day to day. Share that in an issue. Collaborators adding a stack:

1. Copy templates/stack-template/ to community//. 2. Write a WORKFLOW.md: how you use the agent every day, what you hand to it and what you keep an eye on yourself. 3. Add at least one skill or checklist you really use. 4. Run node scripts/check.mjs, then open a PR with the output and a short record of real usage.

Details in CONTRIBUTING.md. Using something from here in your own agent? Tell us with an I use this issue.

Relationship to MiniMax Code

MiniMax Code itself lives in MiniMax-AI/minimax-code. This repository only holds workflows and skills, no MiniMax Code source code.

License

MIT, except where a stack's NOTICE.md says otherwise. The engineering-* skills are adapted from Google Engineering Practices; the adapted material stays under CC-BY 3.0. See stacks/ronny/NOTICE.md.