AI coding agents

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Aerospike publishes the Aerospike agent skill on GitHub. Install it in the AI coding agent you already use, such as Cursor, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, or GitHub Copilot, to give the agent Aerospike expertise: local setup, client development idioms, policies, and modeling rules, plus an explicit list of what the agent must not invent.

This page covers what the skill includes and excludes, how to install it, and how it complements the Voyager Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which gives the agent live cluster access.

Audience

Software developers who use Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, or any AI coding agent that supports the Agent Skills format.

Prerequisites

Installing with the skills CLI requires Node.js.

Aerospike agent skill vs. the Voyager MCP server

The Aerospike agent skill and the Voyager MCP server solve different problems and work well together.

Tool	What it gives the agent
Aerospike agent skill	Aerospike expertise as static content: idioms, policies, modeling rules, and anti-hallucination guardrails. No cluster required.
Voyager MCP server	Live access to a cluster you have saved in Voyager: inspect schema, query records, run info commands, and manage data.

An agent with both can follow Aerospike conventions from the Aerospike agent skill and ground answers in your real cluster through MCP.

What the Aerospike agent skill covers

The skill is published as the compiled-skills/aerospike/ folder and covers three areas:

Local Docker setup and first read/write

Run Aerospike on your machine (Docker image, ports 3000-3002, namespace test), connect with an official client, and complete a verified put and get. Includes Community versus Enterprise image notes, default connection settings, and troubleshooting for common first-run mistakes (wrong namespace, time to live (TTL) writes when the namespace supervisor (NSUP) is disabled, invented REST APIs).

Application development

Collection data types (CDTs), expressions, indexes, batch and query workflows, client policies, connection pooling, and modeling against an existing schema.

Data modeling

Design a schema from requirements or refine an existing one, with guidance on record sizing, CDT selection, access patterns, and relationships. For the long-form design workflow (greenfield or redesign), see the Aerospike data modeling guide.

What the Aerospike agent skill does not cover

The Aerospike agent skill is scoped to the core Aerospike Database only. It does not cover:

Cluster operations, capacity planning, or production topology
Cross datacenter replication (XDR)
Backup and restore
Aerospike Graph Service

For those topics, use Aerospike documentation rather than expecting the Aerospike agent skill to answer them.

For client code, the skill directs your agent to the AI coding agent entry point section of the client’s README on GitHub. For supported clients and versions, see the client matrix.

Install the Aerospike agent skill

Aerospike publishes one compiled skill at compiled-skills/aerospike/ in the agent-skills repository. The skills CLI discovers a top-level skills/ folder first, so you must point install commands at the compiled subdirectory, not the repository root.

Run the following command:

npx skills add https://github.com/aerospike/agent-skills/tree/main/compiled-skills/aerospike

npx skills add https://github.com/aerospike/agent-skills/tree/main/compiled-skills/aerospike -a claude-code

npx skills add https://github.com/aerospike/agent-skills/tree/main/compiled-skills/aerospike -a cursor

npx skills add https://github.com/aerospike/agent-skills/tree/main/compiled-skills/aerospike -a gemini-cli

npx skills add https://github.com/aerospike/agent-skills/tree/main/compiled-skills/aerospike -a github-copilot

The skills CLI might then prompt for installation scope:

Project: writes the skill to .agents/skills/aerospike/ in the directory where you ran the command (.claude/skills/aerospike/ for Claude Code). The skill is available when you open that repository in your agent. Commit the folder if teammates should get the same install.
Global: writes the skill under your user profile (for Cursor, ~/.cursor/skills/ or ~/.agents/skills/). The skill is available in every project you open. It is not tied to one repository.

You do not turn the skill on again per project in agent settings. Scope at install time decides which workspaces can see the files. You can decline optional prompts to install other registry skills.

After install

Cursor: Restart Cursor or open a new Agent chat so it rescans skill directories. Confirm the aerospike skill appears under Customize → Skills in the sidebar. The agent applies skills when the task matches the skill description. If behavior looks generic, start a chat while your application repository (not an unrelated folder) is open, or add the raw SKILL.md URL to project rules as a fallback.

Other agents: Install paths differ by tool. See the compiled skill install guide in the repository.

For always-on context without the CLI, add the raw skill file to your agent’s project rules or knowledge base:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aerospike/agent-skills/main/compiled-skills/aerospike/SKILL.md

The raw file does not include the reference files that ship beside it in the folder, so install the folder when your agent supports skills.

Verify

Confirm the Aerospike agent skill is active by asking for a local Docker setup and first read/write (development only).

Send this prompt to your agent:

Set up a local Aerospike instance with Docker, then run a first put and get with my language's official client.

Confirm skill behavior:
- Uses aerospike/aerospike-server and maps ports 3000-3002.
- Writes to namespace test through the official client, not a REST endpoint.
- Completes a verified put and get.

Troubleshoot

Check the following items when install or verify does not match the behavior on this page.

Agent loads wrong skill

Run npx skills list. If it shows aerospike-getting-started, aerospike-development, or aerospike-data-modeling instead of aerospike, you installed from the repository root. Reinstall using the compiled-skills/aerospike path shown under Install the Aerospike agent skill.

Skill not picked up after install

If you chose Project scope, run the install from your application repository root and open that repository in Cursor. A project-scoped install in another folder (for example a documentation monorepo) does not apply to separate application repositories. If the CLI reports success but the agent still ignores the skill, add the raw SKILL.md URL directly to your agent’s project rules or knowledge base file.