agentc
GitHubagentc-sh/agentc
agentc
GitHubagentc-sh/agentc
›Introduction
Get started›Concepts in 5 minutes›Build your first agent›Add your first tool›Serve and connect
Concepts›Architecture overview›The manifest›The compilation pipeline›Archetypes›The graph›Tools and capabilities›Runtime libraries›Skills›Agents and prompts›Serving and protocols›Observability
Guides›Author a manifest›Write a tool›Give your agent a filesystem›Control network egress›Connect external tools via MCP›Connect agents via A2A›Use the bash tool›Control tool access with capabilities›Write templated prompts›Manage prompts with Langfuse›Pass context from the client›Configure a model provider›Connect a CopilotKit frontend›Deploy a standalone binary›Deploy with Docker and PostgreSQL›Instrument with OpenTelemetry›Extend code generation with blocks
Reference
›agentc init›agentc tool init›agentc build›agentc run›agentc generate›agentc inspect
Manifest
Runtime
›Observability

agentc generate

Generate the project without compiling it.

agentc generate runs the manifest processing, tool transform, and code generation stages and stops before invoking cargo build. The result is a complete Rust project on disk that you can inspect, modify, or build manually.

agentc generate [CONTEXT] [OPTIONS]

Arguments

ArgumentDefaultDescription
CONTEXT.Path to the directory containing agent.acl.

Options

FlagShortDefaultDescription
--output <DIR>-o<CONTEXT>/artifacts/generatedDirectory to write the generated project into.
--dry-runfalseRun all pipeline stages but print the generated file contents to stdout instead of writing them to disk.
--verbose-vfalsePrint detailed output from each pipeline stage, including transformer subprocess output.
--format <FORMAT>autoOutput format. auto selects TTY or plain based on the terminal. plain disables colors and progress indicators.
--cleanupfalseDelete ephemeral build artifacts (for example, temporary virtual environments) after generation completes.

When to use it

Debugging a failed build. If agentc build fails during the compile stage, run agentc generate first. The generated Rust project will be on disk so you can read the generated source and understand what the compiler produced before cargo tried to build it.

Customising generated code. The generated project is a complete Rust workspace. You can modify it by hand, add files, or adjust generated source before building. Run agentc generate to produce the project, make your changes, then build it directly with cargo build --release.

Inspecting what the compiler produces. Use --dry-run to print all generated files to stdout without writing anything to disk.

Example

Generate the project in the current directory:

agentc generate
ls artifacts/generated/

Dry-run to inspect generated files:

agentc generate --dry-run

For the standalone archetype, the output directory contains a complete Rust workspace that you can open in any Rust-aware IDE or build directly with cargo.

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