Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Agent mods

Agent mods extend what your AI agent can do. A mod sits between your editor and your agent, observing the conversation and enriching it.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Editor
    participant Mod
    participant Agent

    Editor->>Mod: prompt
    Mod->>Agent: prompt (enriched)
    Agent->>Mod: response
    Mod->>Editor: response

What can a mod do?

Mods are proxies that see every message passing between editor and agent. This lets them:

Inject context - Add information to prompts before the agent sees them. A mod could insert the current date, project conventions, or relevant documentation.

Provide tools - Give the agent new capabilities. The Ferris mod provides tools for fetching Rust crate sources; the Cargo mod provides cargo build and cargo test.

Transform output - Modify responses before they reach the editor. A mod could reformat code, add annotations, or filter sensitive information.

Coordinate behavior - Manage multi-step workflows, track state across turns, or orchestrate multiple agents.

Mods you might already know

If you’ve used MCP servers, Symposium can inject them as mods. An MCP server provides tools and resources that the agent can invoke - Symposium wraps it with an adapter that handles the protocol translation.

If you’ve used agent skills (like Claude Code’s slash commands), those can also be injected as mods. Skills define prompts and coordinate agent behavior - Symposium adapts them to work with any ACP-compatible agent.

Mods are a superset of both - they can do everything MCP servers and skills can do, plus intercept and transform the conversation itself.

Composing mods

Multiple mods can chain together. Each mod handles its own concern without needing to know about the others:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Editor
    participant Sparkle
    participant Ferris
    participant Agent

    Editor->>Sparkle: prompt
    Sparkle->>Ferris: prompt + collaboration context
    Ferris->>Agent: prompt + collaboration context + Rust tools
    Agent->>Ferris: response
    Ferris->>Sparkle: response
    Sparkle->>Editor: response

This modularity is the key advantage. Mods are interoperable - anyone can write one, and they compose without coordination.

Built-in and community mods

Symposium ships with built-in mods for Rust development. But the ecosystem is open - anyone can create and publish mods, and crate authors can recommend mods that help agents use their libraries.