Setup skills for coding agents

What you’ll get: your coding agent does the ewake setup for a repository. You approve each change to the repository.

Preview. These skills are in preview and can change without notice.

This page is about skills that a coding agent runs in your repository. For the playbooks that ewake follows during investigations, see Skills.

Prerequisites

You need these items:

A coding agent, such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor
A shell with npx and git
A Git repository. The skills read its origin remote and open pull requests.
An ewake account, for the browser sign-in

Install

Add the skills to your repository

npx skills add ewake-ai/skills

The command installs the skills into the repository for the coding agents that you select.

Commit the files

Commit the files so that your team gets the skills.

To get a newer version of the skills, run this command. The skill names limit the update to the four ewake skills.

npx skills update ewake-connect ewake-report-deployments ewake-teach ewake-check-setup

Then commit the changes.

The four skills

Skill	What it does	What it changes	What it needs
`ewake-connect`	It connects your coding agent to ewake and to the ewake documentation.	It changes the user-level MCP configuration of your coding agent, so the servers are available in every project. It changes nothing in the repository.	It needs your ewake dashboard address and a browser sign-in.
`ewake-report-deployments`	It adds the deployment report step to your CI pipeline.	It changes your pipeline definition, in a pull request. Outside GitHub Actions, it also adds `scripts/ewake-report-deployment.sh`.	It needs a CI secret with the name `EWAKE_API_KEY`. You create the secret.
`ewake-teach`	It maps the services of the repository to `.ewake/repo-metadata.yml`.	It changes only `.ewake/repo-metadata.yml`, in a pull request.	It needs nothing. With a connection, it also compares what it finds with what ewake knows.
`ewake-check-setup`	It tells you what ewake knows about the repository and what is missing.	It changes nothing.	It needs nothing. Without a connection, it checks only the repository.

Run the skills in this order. Each line shows the request that you give to your coding agent.

Connect ewake. Run this skill first. The other skills use the connection.
Report our deployments to ewake
Map the services of this repository for ewake
Check the ewake setup. You can also run this skill at any time. It tells you the next step.

What each skill does

The steps of each skill are in ewake-ai/skills on GitHub. This section gives the results.

Connect your coding agent

When to run it. Run the skill ewake-connect first. Run it again when your coding agent tells you that the ewake tools are not available. What the coding agent does. The coding agent adds two MCP servers to its MCP configuration:

ewake is the ewake MCP server. It needs a sign-in.
ewake-docs is the MCP server of this documentation. It needs no sign-in.

After the sign-in, the coding agent lists your service names to make sure that the connection works. If ewake has no services yet, the coding agent tells you the next step. If one of the reasons in Check the setup applies, it also tells you the reason. What you approve. You approve the sign-in in your browser. See Approve the connection. The coding agent cannot approve the sign-in for you. The coding agent shows you each command and each file change before it runs the command or makes the change. In a session that has no browser, the coding agent adds no MCP server. See Cloud agents.

Report deployments

When to run it. Run the skill ewake-report-deployments when you want ewake to compare production problems with your recent deployments. What the coding agent does. The coding agent adds the deployment report step after the production deployment. On GitHub Actions, the deployment report step is a separate job that uses the ewake GitHub Action. On any other CI system, the deployment report step is the script and the command from Deployment Tracking. The deployment report step cannot cause a deployment to fail. The coding agent asks you for the artifact name. The artifact name must be the service name in your observability stack. If the pipeline already reports to ewake, the coding agent only corrects the deployment report step. If the deployment report step is already correct, the coding agent changes nothing. What you approve. You approve the full change before the coding agent commits it and opens a pull request. You create the API key yourself. Open API Keys in your ewake dashboard. Then store the key in your CI system as the secret EWAKE_API_KEY. On GitHub, use a repository secret, not an environment secret. After the next production deployment, the deployment shows on the Releases page of your ewake dashboard.

Map your services

When to run it. Run the skill ewake-teach when you want a file in the repository that describes its services. What the coding agent does. The coding agent reads the repository and writes .ewake/repo-metadata.yml. The file lists the services of the repository, their key metrics, their dependencies, and where they run. The coding agent does not guess a name. Each name comes from a file in the repository or from you. What you approve. You answer the questions of the coding agent. It asks only for facts that the repository and ewake do not give. Then you approve the full change and a report. Only then, the coding agent commits the file and opens a pull request.

Check the setup

When to run it. Run the skill ewake-check-setup at any time. What the coding agent does. With a connection, the coding agent asks ewake about the repository and its deployments of the last 14 days. It also searches your pipeline definition for the deployment report step. Then it shows one table. Each result is OK, Missing, or Not checked. A result is Not checked when the coding agent does not have the ewake tool that the check needs.

Check	Next step when the result is Missing
Ewake tools	Run `ewake-connect`.
Repository in Ewake	Connect GitHub or GitLab in your ewake dashboard.
Service linked to this repository	Run `ewake-report-deployments`. A deployment event links the service to the repository. If the deployment report step is already OK, wait for the next production deployment.
Deployment report step	Run `ewake-report-deployments`.
Deployment received	Run `ewake-report-deployments`.

For an OK result, the Deployment received row gives the time, the artifact name, and the commit of the newest deployment. If the result of Repository in Ewake or of Service linked to this repository is Missing, the coding agent also examines your integrations. If one of these reasons applies, the coding agent tells you the reason. The coding agent examines only the integrations that add repositories or services to ewake: GitHub, GitLab, Datadog, Grafana, Loki, Thanos, and ClickHouse.

Reason	What it means	Next step
No integration	Ewake has none of these integrations.	Do the next step from the table above.
Paused	Each of these integrations is in a paused state.	Resume the integrations in your ewake dashboard.
In progress	A discovery run that writes the knowledge graph is pending or running, and the run is not stalled. This reason also applies when ewake received the newest deployment after the last such run started.	Wait until the run ends. Then run the skill again.
Found nothing	A discovery run that writes the knowledge graph succeeded, but it found nothing.	Do the next step from the table above.

What you approve. You approve nothing. The coding agent does not change a file, open a pull request, or change ewake. It does not start the next step. You make the decision.

The metadata file

The coding agent writes .ewake/repo-metadata.yml when it runs ewake-teach. This example shows version 1 of the format. The comments give the permitted values.

.ewake/repo-metadata.yml

version: 1
services:
  - name: checkout-api            # the exact name in telemetry
    source: deploy/values.yaml    # a file path, or: interview
    key_metrics:                  # at most 8 per service
      - name: checkout.orders.failed
        signals: errors           # latency | errors | traffic | saturation | business
        source: interview
    depends_on:
      - kind: database            # database | cache | queue
        name: checkout-main
        source: config/database.yml
    runs_on:
      - kind: cluster             # cluster | namespace
        name: prod-eu-west-1
        source: argocd/checkout-api.yaml

These rules also apply:

A source that is a file path has no line number.
The source is interview when you gave the fact.
The name of a dependency is the production name.
The file has no other fields.
If the coding agent does not know a value, it does not write the fact.

Ewake starts to use this file in a later release.

Cloud agents

A cloud agent cannot open a browser, so it cannot do the sign-in. Add the connection one time in the settings of the cloud agent, not in a session. The MCP address is your ewake dashboard address plus /mcp, for example https://your-company.ewake.ai/mcp.

Cloud agent	Where to add the connection	Access
Claude Code	A custom connector on claude.ai	Sign-in
Cursor	The MCP server settings of the team	Sign-in
GitHub Copilot coding agent	The MCP configuration in the repository settings	Ewake API key in a secret
Codex cloud	Not possible today	None

These limits apply:

The cloud agent must have permission to reach your ewake address.
A cloud agent cannot reach a self-hosted ewake instance that has a private load balancer.
A sign-in stops 30 days after the approval. Then do the sign-in again.

The GitHub Copilot coding agent connects with an ewake API key. An ewake API key is not limited to the MCP server. Create a separate key for the GitHub Copilot coding agent. For the name of the secret and the header to send, see Cloud agents in the skills README.

Safety

No skill asks for a credential. A credential is an API key, a password, or a token.
Each change waits for you. Each skill shows the change and waits for your approval before it commits.
The ewake MCP server only reads data. Its only scope is mcp:read.
The deployment report step cannot cause a deployment to fail.

The skills are plain text files. For a security review, read the skills and the README in ewake-ai/skills on GitHub.

Introduction

Get Started

Integrations

Working With Ewake

Interfaces

Trust & Security

Resources

FAQ

Setup skills for coding agents

Prerequisites

Install

The four skills

What each skill does

Connect your coding agent

Report deployments

Map your services

Check the setup

The metadata file

Cloud agents

Safety

How ewake handles permissions and data →

​Prerequisites

​Install

​The four skills

​What each skill does

​Connect your coding agent

​Report deployments

​Map your services

​Check the setup

​The metadata file

​Cloud agents

​Safety

How ewake handles permissions and data →

Prerequisites

Install

The four skills

What each skill does

Connect your coding agent

Report deployments

Map your services

Check the setup

The metadata file

Cloud agents

Safety