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Prime Agent

Prime Agent is a coding agent CLI from Prime Intellect. AGRO installs the prime-agent binary with the official installer from https://app.primeintellect.ai/prime-agent/install.sh. AGRO bakes no Prime Agent binary into the sandbox image.

Install​

Run the install command on the host or in the sandbox:

agro harness install prime-agent

The command runs the upstream installer as the sandbox user. AGRO pins Prime Agent to version 0.10.0:

curl -fsSL https://app.primeintellect.ai/prime-agent/install.sh | PRIME_AGENT_VERSION=0.10.0 PRIME_AGENT_RUST_PREFIX="$HOME/.local" PRIME_AGENT_UV_BIN_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" sh

The installer writes the binary to ~/.local/bin/prime-agent and the runtime files to ~/.local/share/prime-agent in the persistent home volume.

Verify the install:

prime-agent --version
agro harness status prime-agent

The prime-agent --version command prints 0.10.0. See Harnesses Overview for the behavior of the verb when the sandbox is not running.

Do not run prime-agent update. The prime-agent update command moves Prime Agent off the AGRO pin. To change the version, change the pin in .agro/cli/src/lib/harnesses/catalog.ts, then run agro harness install prime-agent.

Uninstall​

agro harness uninstall prime-agent

The command deletes ~/.local/bin/prime-agent and ~/.local/share/prime-agent. Prime Agent keeps its state in ~/.prime/agent. This directory holds auth.json, the kernel-venv directory, and the saved sessions. The command does not delete ~/.prime/agent. See Harnesses Overview → Removing a harness.

To delete the Prime Agent state, stop the daemon first, then delete the directory:

prime-agent shutdown
rm -rf ~/.prime/agent

Authentication​

Sign in from a Herdr pane inside the sandbox. Start prime-agent, then type /login in the interactive session. Prime Agent writes the credential to ~/.prime/agent/auth.json.

Prime Agent also reads provider API keys from environment variables, for example:

VariableProvider
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYAnthropic
OPENAI_API_KEYOpenAI
PRIME_API_KEYPrime Intellect

To select a provider or a model for one run, use --provider, --model, or --api-key. AGRO stores no Prime Agent credential.

The Prime Agent daemon keeps the environment that it started with. After you change a provider environment variable, stop the daemon:

prime-agent shutdown

The next prime-agent command starts a new daemon with the new environment.

Common usage​

prime-agent                                                # start an interactive session
prime-agent -p "explain the changes in this repository"    # run a one-shot prompt
prime-agent -c                                             # continue the last session
prime-agent -r                                             # select a session to resume
prime-agent doctor                                         # examine the installation
prime-agent prompt                                         # print the assembled system prompt

Use --mode <text|json|rpc|acp|daemon> to select the output mode. These commands manage the daemon and its sessions: agents, list, sessions, attach, stop, send, schedule, status, and shutdown.

With a ChatGPT subscription, a prime-agent -p run without --provider and --model exited with code 1 and the error Codex error: The 'gpt-5.5' model is not supported when using Codex with a ChatGPT account. The interactive session showed gpt-6.1-sol. To select the model for a -p run, use --provider and --model. Run prime-agent model list to see the provider and model names:

prime-agent -p --provider openai-codex --model gpt-6.1-sol "<prompt>"

Run interactive sessions in Herdr, so that a session survives a disconnect. Run agro tool install herdr, then run herdr, then start prime-agent in a pane.

AGRO integration​

Project instructions​

Prime Agent loads the root AGENTS.md from the start directory. Run prime-agent prompt in /home/sandbox/harness. The output shows /home/sandbox/harness/AGENTS.md under "AGENTS.md discovery". AGRO adds no Prime Agent instruction file.

The -nc (--no-context-files) flag disables the discovery of AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md.

Skills​

Prime Agent discovers AGRO skills through .agents/skills. The link resolves to .agro/skills:

.agents/skills -> ../.agro/skills

The prime-agent prompt output lists each skill at /home/sandbox/harness/.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md. Prime Agent does not list a skill that sets disable-model-invocation: true.

The -ns (--no-skills) flag disables skill discovery. The --skill <path> flag loads one skill.

.agro/scripts/link-providers.sh creates and repairs the .agents/skills link. AGRO adds no Prime Agent skill link.

MCP servers​

Manage user MCP servers with prime-agent mcp. AGRO does not configure MCP servers for Prime Agent.

Hooks and guards​

AGRO hooks in .agro/hooks/ do not run under Prime Agent. The cc-safety-net command hook also does not run under Prime Agent. These AGRO guards are absent under Prime Agent:

  • deny-env-dump.sh
  • deny-secret-paths.sh
  • warn-devtcp.sh
  • notify_slack.sh
  • cc-safety-net
Absent guards

Under Prime Agent, no AGRO guard examines a command or a file path before Prime Agent runs the command or reads the file. The Prime Agent worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox. The Docker sandbox is the security boundary.

Herdr​

Start prime-agent in a Herdr pane. Herdr is the primary workspace for interactive Prime Agent sessions. AGRO adds no Herdr configuration for Prime Agent.

The Prime Agent daemon is secondary to Herdr. A daemon-backed session survives a terminal detach. The daemon socket is under ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}, so the daemon does not survive a container restart. The saved sessions in ~/.prime/agent survive a container restart. Use prime-agent -r to resume a saved session.

References​